STATE  OF  ILLINOIS 

DEPARTMENT  OF  REGISTRATION 
AND  EDUCATION 


Bulletin  of  the  Immigrants  Commission  No.  2 


The  Immigrant 

AND 

Coal  Mining  Communities 
of  Illinois 


GRACE  ABBOTT 
Executive  Secretary,  Immigrants  Commission 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS 

1920 


STATE  OF  ILLINOIS 

DEPARTMENT  OF  REGISTRATION 
AND  EDUCATION 

Bulletin  of  the  Immigrants  Commission  No.  2 


The  Immigrant 

AND 

Coal  Mining  Communities 
of  Illinois 


GRACE  ABBOTT 
Executive  Secretary,  Immigrants  Commission 


SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS 

1920 


(43926 — 1M) 

ILLINOIS   PRINTING   CO.,  DANVILL1,  ILL. 
•2 


STATE  OF  ILLINOIS 

DEPARTMENT  OF  REGISTRATION  AND  EDUCATION 
FRANCIS  W.  SIIEPARDSON,  DIRECTOR,  Springfield 

THE  I  MM  Hi  HANTS'  COMMISSION 

FRANCIS  W.  SIIKI-AKDSON,  CHAIRMAN,  Springfield 

ABEL  DAVIS,  Chicago 

CHARLES  F.  HARDING,  Chicago 

MRS.  HARLAN  WARD  CPOLEY,  Chicago 

JOHN  W.  FORNOF,  Streator 


(IRACB  ABBOTT,  EXECUTIVE  SECRETARY, 
538  So.  Dearborn  St.,  Chicago,  Illinois 


Amendment  to  the  Civil  Administrative  Code  Approved  June 
10,  1919. 

"In  the  Department  of  Registration  and  Education : 

The  Immigrants'  Commission  composed  of  five  members,  one  of 
whom  shall  bo  the  Director,  sh-il' : 

(1)  Make  a  survey  of  the  immigrant,  alien  born  and  foreign- 
speaking  people  of  the  State,  and  of  their  distribution,  conditions  of 
employment,  and  standards  of  housing  and  living. 

(2)  Examine  into  their  economic,  financial,  and  legal  customs, 
their  provisions  for  insurance  and  other  prudential  arrangements, 
their  social  organization  and  their  educational  needs;  keeping  in 
friendly  and  sympathetic  touch  with  alien  groups  and  co-operating 
with  state  and  local  officials  and  with  immigrant  and  related  au- 
thorities of  other  states  and  of  the  United  States." 

Address  all  communications  to 

The  Executive  Secretary, 

Immigrants'  Commission, 

538  So.  Dearborn  St., 

•. 

Chicago,  Illinois. 


The  family  of  a   Hungarian  miner. 


WHY  THE  STUDY  WAS  MADE1 

The  Immigrants'  Commission  is  directed  by  statute  to  investi- 
gate the  "conditions  of  employment  and  standards  of  housing  and 
living,"  "social  organizations,"  and  "educational  needs"  of  the 
foreign  born  in  the  state.  The  first  communities  in  which  such 
investigations  were  undertaken  by  the  Commission  were  four  coal- 
mining counties  representative  of  the  north,  central,  and  southern 
fields  of  Illinois.  There  were  several  reasons  for  this  choice. 
Although  in  the  value  of  the  products,  agriculture  and  manufactur- 
ing, are  more  important  than  mining  in  Illinois,  still  in  1910  the 
State  became  the  second  largest  coal-producing  state  in  the  United 
States.  Pennsylvania,  of  course,  ranked  first.  Since  then  Illinois 
has  been  surpassed  only  by  West  Virginia.  These  three  states, 
Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia,  and  Illinois  furnish  two-thirds  of  the 
bituminous  coal  of  the  country ;  roughly,  one-half  of  this  comes  from 
Pennsylvania  and  one-fourth  each  from  Illinois  and  from  West 
Virginia. 

CHANGES  IN  ILLINOIS  MINING  COMMUNITIES 

There  have  been  important  racial  changes  in  the  history  of  min- 
ing in  Illinois.  The  pioneer  workers  were  American,  English,  Irish, 
Scotch,  Welsh,  German,  and  a  few  French  and  English  Canadian. 
In  1890  only  7  per  cent  of  the  employees  in  the  mines  and  quarries 
of  Illinois  were  from  non-English  speaking  countries  other  than 
Germany  and  the  Scandinavian  states.  By  1899  about  25  per  cent 
were  from  France,  Italy,  Russia,  Austria-Hungary,  and  Belgium. 
With  the  opening  of  new  fields  from  1902  to  1907,  and  the  consequent 
extraordinary  development  of  coal  mining  in  the  Middle  West,  the 
number  of  immigrants  from  southern  and  eastern  Europe  in  these 
fields  increased.  This  was  especially  true  of  Illinois.  In  some  of 
mining  towns  the  recent  immigrants  displaced  the  older  immigrants, 
but  in  many  places  the  coming  of  the  Italian,  Lithuanian,  and  Rus- 
sian was  coincident  with  the  opening  of  the  new  mines.  At  present 
there  are  mining  communities  in  Illinois  in  which  practically  the 
entire  population  are  recent  immigrants  from  southern  and  eastern 


1  The  investigation  on  which  this  text  is  based  was  done  in  the  main  by  Miss  Sybil  Loughead. 


Europe.  Poor  roads  and  lack  of  other  transportation  facilities  have 
resulted  in  an  isolation  of  some  of  these  communities  not  found  in 
any  of  the  industrial  towns  of  the  state. 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  SOCIAL  IMPORTANCE  OF  COAL  MINING 

The  war  and  the  events  since  the  war  have  brought  to  the  people 
of  every  country  a  new  sense  of  the  dependence  of  our  economic  life 
and  of  our  personal  comfort  upon  the  uninterrupted  production  of 
coal.  The  increased  cost  of  living  as  well  as  the  desire  for  a  better 
standard  of  living  has  resulted  in  world-wide  unrest  among  coal 
miners. 

With  the  price  controlled  by  the  cost  of  production  in  the  least 
productive  mines,  we  are  faced  with  the  dilemma  of  impossibly  low 
standards  in  many  mines  or  with  unjustifiably  high  profits  and  high 
prices  in  the  more  productive  mines. 

The  shortage  of  supply  and  the  high  prices  have  brought  discon- 
tent on  the  part  of  the  public  and  the  demand  is  general  that  mine 
operators  and  miners  should  consider  the  interest  of  the  public  in 
any  policy  adopted.  This  conflict  of  feeling  has  developed  in  Illinois 
as  well  as  in  other  states  and  other  nations.  Radical  solutions  have 
been  suggested  from  various  quarters.  The  alien  character  of  the 
population,  while  probably  in  no  case  the  cause,  is  in  many  of  these 
towns  an  added  complication  in  the  discussions.  It  was  therefore 
believed  that  the  basic  facts  about  the  population,  housing,  educa- 
tional opportunities,  and  general  social  conditions  of  the  immigrant 
population  in  these  mining  towns  of  Illinois  should  be  known. 

HISTORY  OF  RACIAL  CHANGES 

The  United  States  census  does  not  give  the  nationality  figures 
for  smaller  communities  nor  for  coal  miners  as  distinct  from  those 
employed  in  other  mines  and  in  quarries.  The  census  taken  by  the 
State  Mining  Board  in  1899  is  the  latest  official  one  showing  nation- 
ality in  detail.  A  partial  return  from  a  questionnaire  sent  out  in 
1918  by  the  Coal  Operators'  Association  to  determine  the  number  of 
the  foreign  born  employed  in  the  bituminous  mines  in  Illinois  shows 
the  English  to  be  the  largest  group;  the  Italians,  Austro-Hungari- 
ans,  Germans,  Russians,  Poles,  and  French  follow  in  the  order 
indicated. 


The  Italians  were  among  the  first  of  the  recent  immigrants  to 
go  into  mining.  As  early  as  1899  they  were  the  largest  foreign 
group — with  the  exception  of  the  Germans — and  there  probably  are 
now  twice  as  many  Italians  as  there  are  of  any  other  one  nationality 
working  in  the  coal  mines  in  Illinois.  They  had  a  part  in  the 
development  of  the  northern  mines  as  well  as  in  the  more  recently 
opened  southern  ones.  The  Poles  were  next  in  importance  to  the 
Italians  in  1899 ;  but  since  that  date  they  have  not  been  entering  the 
mines  in  great  numbers,  and,  more  than  the  other  nationalities,  they 
have  left  for  industrial  employment  in  cities  and  towns,  so  that  in 
the  mining  communities  they  are  at  present  surpassed  in  numbers 
by  the  Lithuanians  as  well  as  by  the  Italians. 

The  Lithuanians  have  come  chiefly  since  1900  and  are  therefore 
more  numerous  in  the  central  and  southern  fields  than  in  the  north- 
ern section.  They  already  outnumber  the  Italians  in  Springfield 
and  in  many  places  in  the  southern  part  of  the  state.  The  Slovaks, 
Slovenians,  Croatians,  and  Serbians  are  also  recent  comers  to  these 
same  districts.  While  there  are  a  few  in  almost  every  community, 
and  their  total  numbers  are  not  large,  they  form  a  large  part  of  the 
population  in  individual  places.  Thus  Zeigler  has  a  large  per  cent 
of  Croatians  and  Servians ;  Thayer  is  largely  Slovak ;  Divernon 
chiefly  Magyar;  while  Springfield  and  Auburn  have  good-sized 
colonies  of  Slovenians  and  French  respectively. 


FOUR  COUNTIES  SELECTED  AS  BASIS  OF  THE  STUDY 

As  a  basis  of  the  Commission's  study,  schedules  were  taken  by 
agents  of  the  Commission  in  26  towns  and  camps  in  Williamson, 
Franklin,  Bureau  and  Sangamon  Counties.  Williamson  and  Frank- 
lin Counties  are  in  the  newer  fields  in  the  extreme  southern  part  of 
the  state.  They  are  the  two  most  important  coal-mining  counties 
in  Illinois.  For  the  past  five  years  about  one-fourth  of  the  coal 
produced  and  of  the  men  employed  in  the  mines  of  the  State  have 
been  in  these  two  counties.  Williamson  County  had  at  least  one 
mine  thirty-seven  years  ago,  but  it  produced  little  coal  until  after 
1900.  Since  that  date  the  mines  have  developed  so  rapidly  that 
from  1907  to  1910,  and  again  from  1912  to  1914,  it  mined  more  coal 


8 

than  any  county  in  the  State;  since  1914  it  has  been  second  only  to 
Franklin  County  in  coal  production.1 

In  1900  there  were  1,440  men  working  in  the  mines  of  William- 
son County;  in  1910  there  were  7,760.  It  now  has  40  commercial 
mines  employing  10,132  men  and  in  addition  9  small  mines  supply- 
ing local  trade  and  employing  93  more  men — making  a  total  of 
10,225  miners.2 

The  nationality  census  of  coal  miners  taken  by  the  Illinois  Min- 
ing Board  in  1899  showed  1,427  miners  in  Williamson  County,  of 
whom  1,178  or  83  per  cent  were  American.  Of  the  remainder  138 
were  Italian,  90  British,  15  German,  5  Russian,  and  1  French.3  Of 
3,712  foreign-born  white  persons  in  the  county  in  1910,  1,607  were 
from  Italy,  573  from  Russia,  144  from  Austria  and  17  from 
Hungary.4  Since  then  the  number  of  foreign  born  has 
steadily  grown  as  the  mines  have  developed.  The  Italians 
still  constitute  the  majority  of  the  foreign  born,  followed  in  impor- 
tance by  the  Lithuanians.  Many  of  the  Poles  have  left  for  industrial 
cities  and  towns,  and  fewer  have  come  in,  so  that  they  are  far  out- 
numbered by  the  Italians  and  Lithuanians.  Practically  all  the  other 
nationalities  of  southeastern  Europe  are  represented  in  small  groups. 

Franklin  County's  population  history  is  very  much  like  that  of 
Williamson  County,  except  that  its  growth  has  been  more  rapid; 
its  towns  are  newer  and  its  population  less  settled.  Because  of  this 
rapid  growth  it  has  attracted  more  men  whose  families  are  in 
Europe,  more  workers  without  ties  of  any  kind ;  and  there  is  in 
consequence  less  permanency  and  more  movement  both  in  and  out  of 
Franklin  than  Williamson  County. 

Like  Williamson  County  it  also  has  no  factories  and  is  of  even 
less  importance  in  agriculture.  Unlike  Williamson  County  it  had 
no  mines  in  the  early  days  and  had  not  as  many  as  one  hundred 


•Thirty-eighth  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois,  1919,  table  35,  p.  91. 
»/b<d.,  p.  264. 

Eighteenth  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois,  1899,  table  53,  p.  74. 
thirteenth  Census   of  the  U.   S.,   1910.     Abstract  with   supplement   for   Illinois, 
p.  634. 


men  in  the  mines  before  1900.1  The  greatest  dvelopnient  of  its 
mines  has  come  since  1910.  Betwen  1907  and  1915  Franklin  County 
passd  from  eighteenth  to  its  present  position  as  the  most  important 
mining  county  in  the  State.  It  now  employs  the  most  miners  and 
produces  the  most  coal  and  has  the  five  largest  mines  in  the  State.2 
It  has  apparently  not  yet  reached  its  maximum  production.  A  new 
mine  was  opened  in  the  summer  of  1920,  for  which  800  miners  were 
needed,  and  many  of  the  other  mines  are  still  continuing  to  increase 
their  production.  In  1900  the  foreign  born  constituted  only  0.8  per 
cent  of  the  population  of  Franklin  County  and  in  1910,  6.7  per  cent. 
Unlike  Williamson  County  the  Italians  do  not  constitute  a  majority 
of  the  foreign  born.  In  1910,  out  of  a  total  of  1,731  foreign  born, 
489  were  from  Italy,  456  from  Russia,  233  from  Austria,  and  29 
from  Hungary.  Although  the  total  numbers  have  increased,  the 
relative  importance  of  the  various  national  groups  remains  about 
the  same.  A  few  of  the  communities  are  largely  Italian,  but  in  most 
of  them  there  is  a  preponderance  of  Lithuanians,  Poles,  Slovaks, 
and  Southern  Slavs. 

Sangamon  and  Bureau,  also  mining  counties  with  a  large  per 
cent  of  the  miners  from  southern  and  eastern  Europe,  present  strik- 
ing contrasts  with  Williamson  and  Franklin  Counties.  Sangamon 
County,  the  third  largest  coal-producing  county  in  the  state,  has  had 
important  mines  since  1882,  and  its  growth  since  that  date  has  been 
slow  and  steady.  It  is  an  important  and  rich  agricultural  district 
and  many  of  the  settlements  have  developed  from  villages  of  retired 
farmers.  Its  villages  are  attractive  in  appearance,  compared  to 
many  of  the  raw  camps  in  Williamson  and  Franklin  Counties. 

The  majority  of  the  miners  of  Sangamon  County  were  English 
speaking  in  1900.  There  were  only  116  Poles,  69  Italians,  and  a  few 
Lithuanians,  Russians,  and  Austrians  among  a  total  of  2,500 
miners.  In  1900  the  number  of  foreign  born  constituted  11.5  per 
cent  and  in  1910  13  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the  County.  This 
increase  was  almost  entirely  an  increase  in  the  numbers  from 
southern  and  eastern  Europe — particularly  Lithuanians — who  were 
employed  in  the  mines. 


1Franklin  County  had  so  few  minors  In  '1899  that  it  was  not  included  in  the 
nationality  census  made  by  the  Mining  Board  in  that  year. 

Thirty-eighth  Annual  Coal  lleport  of  Illinois  Department  of  Mines  and  Minerals, 
1919,  table  35. 


10 


Coal  production  is  declining  in  Bureau  County,  and  instead  of 
the  problems  that  come  with  mushroom  towns,  it  has  those  of  the 
all  but  deserted  village.  In  many  of  the  towns  there  is  discontent 
among  those  who  wish  to  leave  for  more  profitable  fields  of  em- 
ployment and  are  prevented  from  going  because  they  own  property 
which  thev  cannot  sell. 


No  housing  shortage  hore.  A  row  of  20  houses  in 
Cherry,  only  2  of  which  wore  occupied  in  August, 
1320. 


The   main   road   to   the  outside 
world. 


The  Company  store  for  three  small 
camps,  composed  of  about  200  company 
houses,  lu  addition  to  the  store  there 
are  a  pool  room,  a  chapel,  and  a  post- 
office. 


The  beginnings  of  a  new  camp. 


Bureau  County  is,  however,  representative  of  the  older  coal 
fields  whose  mines  have  been  largely  developed  by  foreign  labor.  As 
early  as  1900,  21.6  per  cent  of  its  population  was  foreign  born  and 
by  1910  the  foreign  born  formed  23  per  cent  of  its  total  population. 
The  four  main  groups  were  Swedish,  German,  Italian,  and  Russian 
—the  last  two  being  numerically  much  the  more  important.  The 
mines  are  in  the  southeastern  part  of  the  county,  and  here  the 


11 

foreign  born  have  constituted  a  larger  per  cent  of  the  population 
than  in  the  county  as  a  whole.  For  example,  in  Spring  Valley  only 
8  per  cent  were  native  born  of  native  parentage,  and  42  per  cent 
were  of  foreign  birth. 

Exclusive  of  the  Lithuanians  and  Poles  in  Spring  Valley  the 
miners  of  Bureau  County  are  now  almost  entirely  Italian,  with  a 
few  Slovaks  and  Belgians,  but  practically  no  Croatians,  Serbians, 
Magyars,  and  others  who  are  to  be  found  in  the  southern  and 
central  field. 

The  original  workers  in  these  mines  were  said  to  be  English- 
speaking  men  who  came  from  the  Braidwood  field,  just  south  of 
Bureau  County,  which  gave  out  just  as  the  Bureau  County 
mines  were  being  opened.  The  non-English  speaking  foreign  born 
soon  began  to  come.  At  first  there  was  opposition  to  them  on  the 
part  of  the  English-speaking  miners  and  many  of  the  latter  left.  By 
1899  as  many  as  58  per  cent  of  those  reporting  their  nationality 
were  from  eastern  and  southern  Europe.  The  Italians  were  among 
the  first  to  come.  The  Coal  Report  of  1899  shows  that  even  then 
780  out  of  a  total  of  3,071  miners  in  the  county  were  Italians.3  A 
partial  census  taken  by  an  Italian  priest  in  Spring  Valley  in  1911 
showed  that  at  that  time  many  of  the  Italian  families  had  lived 
there  twenty  to  twenty-five  years  and  that  there  were  some  second 
and  even  third-generation  Italians  in  the  community. 

The  Poles  were  also  early  comers  to  Bureau  County.  As  early 
as  1892  there  were  sufficient  to  support  a  church  in  Spring  Valley. 
Their  numbers  have  decreased  since  that  date,  but  the  second  and 
third  generation  of  the  original  Polish  settlers  still  live  in  Bureau 
County. 

The  Lithuanians  did  not  begin  to  come  until  later.  The  1899 
State  Coal  Report  showed  only  42  miners  from  Russia.3  By  1910 
immigrants  from  Russia  constituted  approximately  one-seventh  of 
the  total  number  of  foreign  born  in  the  county.  The  Polish  and  the 
Italians  have  lived  in  the  district  so  long  that  they  mingle  with  the 
American  population.  In  contrast,  the  Lithuanians  are  said  to  be 
very  clannish  because  they  live  together  around  their  church.  There 
have  been  and  still  are  some  Belgian  and  French  and  a  few  Slovak 
workers  in  the  mines  of  Bureau  County. 


•Eighteenth  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois,  1899.     Table  53,  p.  73. 


12 


NUMBER    AND    NATIONALITY    OF    INDIVIDUALS    FROM 
WHOM  INFORMATION  WAS  SECURED 

In  the  course  of  the  Commission's  investigation  schedules  were 
obtiained  in  eleven  towns  and  camps  in  Williamson  County.  This 
was  practically  every  mining  community  which  had  a  considerable 
foreign-born  population.  In  Franklin,  Bureau,  and  Sangamon 
Counties  representative  settlements  were  visited — fifteen  altogether. 
An  effort  was  made  to  secure  schedules  from  families  from  southern 
and  eastern  Europe,  as  it  is  believed  that  they  represent  not  only  the 
immigration  of  the  recent  past  but  of  the  next  ten  years  to  come. 
There  was  no  selection  of  individuals  from  whom  schedules  were 
taken.  A  house-to-house  canvass  was  made  in  the  district  selected. 
Altogether  556  schedules  were  secured  which  covered  556  foreign- 
born  men,  497  foreign-born  women,  and  1,642  children.  The  nation- 
ality of  these  men  and  women  is  given  in  the  following  table : 

NATIONALITY  OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN  IN  ILLINOIS  MINING     TOWNS  FROM  WHOM 
SCHEDULES  WERE  SECURED 


NATIONALITY 

Total 

Men 

Women 

Italian  

473 

249 

224 

North  Italian  

341 

181 

160 

South  Italian  

112 

56 

56 

Not  specified  

20 

12 

8 

Lithuanian  

261 

139 

122 

Polish  

140 

72 

68 

Czppho-Slnyalf 

48 

26 

22 

Jugo-Slav  ... 

41 

23 

18 

Magyar  

32 

17 

15 

Ruthenian  and  Ukrainian  

24 

13 

11 

French  and  Belgian  

23 

13 

10 

All  others  

11 

4 

7 

Total  

1,053 

556 

497 

PREVIOUS   OCCUPATIONS   OF   THE   IMMIGRANT  MINERS 

OF  ILLINOIS 

Immigration  from  eastern  Europe  has  been  in  the  main  a 
peasant  migration,  so  that  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  in  the 
mines,  as  in  the  factories,  most  of  the  men  were  farm  laborers  or 
farmers  before  they  came  to  the  United  States.  The  experience  of 
380  of  the  556  men  from  whom  schedules  were  secured  had  been  lim- 
ited to  farming  before  they  emigratd.  Only  43  had  worked  in  the 
mines  in  Europe.  Of  this  number  there  was  an  interesting  group  of  14 


13 

Lithuanians  who  had  first  gone  from  the  farms  of  Lithuania  to  the 
coal  mines  in  the  vicinity  of  Glasgow,  Scotland,  and  from  there 
had  come  to  the  United  States;  there  were  also  6  Sicilians,  all  of 
whom  had  worked  in  the  sulphur  mines  in  Villa  Rosa,  in  Sicily;1 
there  were  5  French  miners  who  had  worked  in  the  coal  mines  of 
France  before  they  emigrated;  and,  indicative  of  the  movement  of 
Italians  to  France  and  Germany,  there  were  3  North  Italians  who 
had  previously  worked  in  both  French  and  German  mines. 

A  very  large  per  cent  of  all  immigrants  coming  to  the  United 
States  are  destined  to  friends  or  relatives  already  here ;  and  instead 
of  attempting  to  begin  the  American  experiment  unaided  or  unad- 
vised, they  rely  upon  the  advice  or  help  of  relatives  or  countrymen. 
The  knowledge  of  employment  opportunities  that  the  friends  or 
relatives  have  is  usually  confined  to  their  own  immediate  environ- 
ment. This  explains  the  fact  that  425  of  the  556  men  from  whom 
Schedules  were  secured  had  never  worked  at  anything  but  mining  in 
the  United  States :  it  also  explains  why  those  immigrants  who  were 
skilled  workers  in  a  trade  for  which  there  was  no  market  in  the 
particular  community  to  which  this  tie  of  relationship  or  friendship 
led  them  never  followed  their  trade  here.  In  the  course  of  the 
schedule-taking  men  were  found  working  in  the  mines  who  had  been 
millers,  carpenters,  bricklayers,  shoemakers,  tinners,  blacksmiths, 
and  clerks  in  their  European  homes.  A  few  of  them  preferred 
mining  to  their  old  trades,  but  most  of  them  had  gone  into  the  mines 
because  they  were  in  a  mining  district  and  they  took  it  for  granted 
that  they  could  not  find  work  at  their  trade.  Most  of  them  had 
come  to  a  camp  or  a  town  which  had  grown  up  around  a  mine,  and 
unless  it  was  on  the  edge  of  an  industrial  town,  mining  was  at  least 
the  easiest  choice. 

Over  and  over  again  those  who  had  been  farmers  or  farm  labor- 
ers at  home  said  that  they  worked  in  the  mines  because  it  was  the 
best-paying  job  they  could  get  when  they  came;  some  of  them  said 
they  preferred  farm  work,  but  "it  takes  too  much  money  to  be  a 
farmer  here"  and  farm  hands  are  not  so  well  paid  as  miners. 


'This  could  probably  not  be  counted  as  experience  which  in  any  way  qualified  for 
coal  mining  here.  The  peasants  of  Villa  Rosa  not  only  get  out  the  sulphur  and  haul  It 
from  the  mines,  but  they  sometimes  grind  it  in  a  primitive  way  in  their  homes  during 
the  winter. 


14 
LIVING  CONDITIONS 

HOUSING 

In  Illinois  the  history  of  a  mining  settlement  usually  begins 
with  the  driving  of  the  shaft  and  the  building  of  a  number  of 
shacks  by  the  mining  company.  Company  ownership  of  the  houses, 
tihe  store,  and  the  other  buildings  of  the  town  was  formerly  more 
common  than  at  present.  But  there  are  still  camps  entirely  owned 
by  the  company,  and  others  in  which  the  company  has  adopted  the 
policy  of  selling  the  houses  to  the  miners  but  still  owns  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  town. 

If  the  mine  happens  to  be  near  a  country  village,  farming 
center,  or  industrial  town  its  development  is  influenced  by  the 
housing  and  other  standards  of  the  village  or  town.  But  more  often 
it  is  called  a  "camp,"  is  remote,  and  isolated ;  and  ugliness,  incon- 
venience, and  even  real  hardships  are  the  rule. 

The  mining  towns  and  camps  are  painfully  alike  in  appearance. 
The  four  or  five-room  box-like  houses  are  built  in  rows,  elevated 
from  the  ground  on  posts,  without  any  cellar  or  foundation.  Some- 
times all  the  houses  in  a  camp  have  front  porches;  sometimes 
porches  have  been  provided  only  for  the  new  houses ;  in  some  of  the 
towns  shingling  has  been  used ;  and  in  some  few  the  drab-gray  paint 
which  is  almost  universal  has  given  place  to  green  or  some  other 
color.  There  are  frequently  no  trees  or  gardens  of  any  sort. 

For  example,  Bush-Hurst  is  a  combination  of  two  distinct  set- 
tlements which  are  about  a  mile  apart.  Hurst  is  a  comfortable 
village,  built  around  a  town  square,  in  which  not  only  miners  but 
retired  farmers  live.  With  the  exception  of  one  Croatian  and  five 
Italian  families  the  people  in  Hurst  are  Americans,  and  most  of 
them  own  their  own  homes.  Bush,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  company- 
owned,  immigrant  settlement  of  about  two  hundred  houses  scattered 
in  three  camps.  The  first  houses  were  of  the  ugliest  box  type,  the 
next  ones  to  be  built  had  porches,  and  for  those  now  building 
stained  shingles  instead  of  clapboards  are  being  used. 

Clifford,  near  Herrin,  in  Williamson  County,  is  another  com- 
pany-owned town.  Here  there  are  216  houses  of  three  and  four 
rooms,  all  looking  very  much  alike  and  painted  slate  colored.  Each- 
house  had  an  outside  toilet,  which  the  company  was  supposed  to 


15 

clean  once  a  month,  but  many  of  them  were  offensively  dirty,  and 
the  people  complained  they  had  not  been  cleaned  in  three  months. 

Zeigler,  the  first  mining  settlement  in  Franklin  County,  was 
started  as  a  company  town  seven  years  ago.  It  now  has  from  3,000 
to  3,500  people,  about  60  per  cent  of  whom  are  foreign  born.  Of 
these  approximately  400  are  Croatian,  100  Montenegrin,  Bulgarian, 
Polish,  and  Lithuanian,  respectively,  and  smaller  numbers  are 
Slovak  and  Italian.  For  the  past  two  years  the  company  has  been 
selling  the  houses.  It  still  has  about  100  houses  and  4  so-called 
"flats,"  which  it  owns  and  rents  to  the  miners.  These  flats  are 
barrack-like  buildings,  some  longer  than  others.  At  the  time  of  the 


One  of  four  "Company  Flats"  in  Zeigler.  These  are  barrack-like  buildings  varying 
in  length.  One  bouses  6,  one  16,  and  another  30  foreign-born  families.  The  picture 
was  taken  the  day  after  clean-up  day. 

investigation  one  housed  6,  one  8,  one  16,  and  another  30  families 
under  one  roof.  The  toilets  are  all  outside  privies,  supposedly 
cleaned  every  month  by  the  company,  but  last  summer  they  were  so 
dirty  that  the  Commission's  investigators  reported  the  odor  in  the 
rear  of  the  flat  buildings  to  be  almost  unbearable.  In  the  seven 
years  in  which  the  camp  has  been  in  existence,  no  attempt  had  been 
made  to  clean  up  or  remove  the  rubbish  until  in  May,  1920,  a 
clean-up  day  was  held,  at  which  time  the  mine  closed  and  all  the 
business  stopped  while  a  beginning  was  made  in  the  removal  of 
rubbish  and  filth. 


16 


NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  IN  HOUSEHOLDS  FOR  WHICH  SCHEDULES  WERE  SECURED  WITH 
SPECIFIED  NUMBER  OF  ROOMS 


Number 

r\t 

NUMBER  OF  ROOMS 

Total 

fjl 

Persons 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8  or  more 

No  Re  port 

Number 
Households 

1 

1 

1 

2 

4 

2 

1 

12 

7 

12 

1 

I 

34 

3 

4 

11 

33 

6 

1 

1 

56 

4 

5 

19 

43 

15 

2 

2 

2 

83 

5 

3 

20 

56 

25 

14 

1 

2 

121 

6 

2 

9 

54 

19 

3 

1 

1 

89 

7 

1 

8 

28 

8 

10 

5 

1 

61 

8 

4 

18 

6 

7 

1 

1 

37 

9 

3 

12 

2 

2 

2 

21 

10 

1 

5 

3 

3 

1 

13 

11 

4 

1 

5 

10 

12 

2 

2 

13 

2 

2 

No  re  port. 

1 

1 

Total... 

1 

28 

83 

268 

86 

52 

14 

6 

1 

539 

In  some  of  the  towns  there  are  not  enough  houses  to  take  care 
of  the  workers,  and  in  most  of  them  there  is  not  sufficient  variety  to 
care  properly  for  the  families  of  different  sizes  and  tastes.  In 
Williamson  and  Franklin  counties  185  out  of  the  310  families 
scheduled  were  living  in  four-room  houses — 75  families  lived  in 
fewer  and  only  49  in  more  than  four  rooms. 

In  Sangamon  County  44  of  the  128  families  interviewed  lived  in 
four-room  houses,  while  34  had  fewer  and  44  had  more  than  that 
number  of  rooms.  In  Bureau  County  housing  conditions  were 
better.  There,  out  of  115  families  for  whom  schedules  were  secured, 
39  families  lived  in  four-room  houses,*  3  in  fewer,  and  68  in  more 
than  that  number.  In  80  of  the  homes  visited  in  the  four  counties 
in  the  course  of  the  inquiry  there  were  two  or  more  persons  per 
room ;  in  7  the  rate  was  three  or  more  persons  per  room. 

THE  BOARDER  IN  THE  IMMIGRANT  FAMILY 

As  in  the  immigrant  neighborhood  of  a  city  the  boarder  is 
found  in  the  mining  towns,  and  more  frequently  in  the  mining 
camps.  The  reasons  are  the  same  in  each  case.  There  are  large 
numbers  of  single  men,  or  men  whose  families  are  in  Europe,  and 
there  is  seldom  any  plan  made  for  housing  them.  There  are  more  of 
these  single  men  in  the  newer  camps,  and  sometimes  in  these 


17 

one  finds  bachelor  houses  where  the  single  men  live  together  in  non- 
family  groups.  But  some  of  the  single  men  must  always  find 
accomodations  with  families.  They  are  taken  in  sometimes  out  of 
a  kindly  appreciation  of  this  fact,  and  sometimes  the  wife  does  it  to 
supplement  the  family  income.  In  Bureau  County,  where  wages  are 
lower  but  there  are  fewer  single  men  and  more  houses,  only  12  per 
cent  of  the  families  covered  by  the  Commission's  investigation  had 
boarders,  and  three-fourths  of  these  had  only  one.  In  Sangamon 
County  21  per  cent  of  the  families  had  boarders — one-half  of  these 
had  only  one  and  one-fourth  only  two.  In  Williamson  and  Franklin 
counties  21  per  cent  had  boarders,  and  more  than  half  of  these  had 
more  than  one  man  living  with  the  family.  This  practice  of  keeping 
boarders  is  not  confined  to  any  one  nationality.  Thus  in  the 
southern  counties  24  per  cent  of  the  Lithuanians,  23  per  cent  of  the 
South  Italians,  22  per  cent  of  the  Polish,  and  21  per  cent  of  the 
North  Italian  families  covered  in  the  investigation  had  boarders. 
In  one  six-room  house  a  Ruthenian  family  of  four  had  eight  board- 
ers; another,  in  which  there  was  only  one  child,  had  ten  boarders. 
One  Lithuanian  family  had  three  children  and  six  boarders — eleven 
people  in  a  six-room  house.  As  in  the  industrial  neighborhoods  of 
the  city,  the  practice  of  taking  boarders  exposes  the  family  to  the 
generally  bad  physical  effects  of  overcrowding  and  to  the  even  more 
serious  social  consequences  which  result  from  lack  of  privacy  and  a 
generally  demoralized  family  life. 

THE  WATER  SUPPLY. 

None  of  the  houses  visited  in  the  course  of  this  study  had  water 
inside  the  house.  In  Williamson  and  Franklin  counties  securing 
any  water  at  all,  to  say  nothing  of  pure  water,  was  often  quite  a 
problem.  The  water  is  frequently  piped  from  the  mines  or  river 
and  is  often  not  fit  to  drink.  Cisterns,  sometimes  very  dirty,  are 
relied  upon  for  drinking  water  in  many  of  the  camps.  In  one 
company-owned  camp  one  well  was  used  by  20  families,  another  by 
15,  another  by  14,  and  another  by  10  families.  In  another  camp 
water  is  brought  from  the  mines,  and  one  faucet  serves  several 
families.  It  is,  however,  not  considered  good  for  drinking  purposes, 
and  rain  water  caught  from  the  roofs  is  often  used.  In  Zeigler 
there  is  usually  a  faucet  between  two  houses,  but  the  water  is  not 
only  not  good  but  gives  out  entirely  at  times.  This  the  women  in 
other  towns  complained  of  also  and  explained  that  when  a  dry 
season  comes  they  "have  to  get  water  wherever  they  can." 


18 

This  carrying  water  from  a  distance  and  having  an  insufficient 
supply  adds  to  the  women's  work,  and  it  must  also  inevitably  lower 
family  standards  of  cleanliness. 

These  conditions  may  seem  like  temporary  hardships  which 
will  soon  be  overcome.  It  should,  however,  be  remembered  that 
families  were  found  who  had  lived  in  camps  like  these  for  ten  or 
fourteen  years,  had  come  from  similar  or  frequently  worse  condi- 
tions in  Scotland,  Pennsylvania,  or  West  Virginia.  These  are  the 
only  homes  many  of  the  children  are  ever  to  know  unless,  as  many 
of  them  in  the  past  have  done,  they  leave  the  camp  for  the  city. 

The  problem  of  how  to  insure  decent,  comfortable  homes  for  the 
miners  is  not  easily  solved.  Any  plan  which  looks  beyond  mere 
negative  action,  the  prohibition  of  what  is  extremely  bad,  is  much 
more  difficult  to  work  out  for  a  mining  than  for  an  industrial  town. 
The  life  of  the  mining  town  is  more  precarious,  so  that  conditions 
approximating  those  of  the  construction  camp  are  tolerated.  While 
an  individual  mine  may  be  operated  only  a  short  time,  the  miners 
move  on  to  another  place  so  that  the  conditions  under  which  they 
live  are  by  no  means  temporary.  Whether  the  houses  are  company 
owned,  built  by  a  real  estate  company,  or  owned  by  the  workers, 
the  uncertainty  as  to  the  continuance  of  the  mine  affects  the  char- 
acter of  the  building  of  both  the  homes  and  the  town  improvements. 
Almost  no  experiments  have  been  made  in  the  United  States  in 
state  or  municipal  housing  or  in  co-partnership  ownership.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  expected  that,  although  so  greatly  needed,  the  first 
experiments  will  be  made  in  communities  in  which  conditions  are 
so  little  stabilized  as  in  the  mining  towns.  Still  the  Miners'  Union 
has  led  the  way  in  consumers'  co-operation,  and  it  may  be  that  some 
plan  can  be  worked  out  for  a  .combination  company  and  union 
ownership  which  will  eliminate  the  objections  to  company -owned 
houses  and  speculative  building,  and  will  at  the  same  time  make  a 
much  more  just  distribution  of  the  losses  if  the  operation  of  the 
mine  is  abandoned  than  under  any  plan  by  which  the  men  own  their 
own  homes.  Certainly  the  subject  is  of  such  importance  that  it 
deserves  the  most  serious  consideration  by  the  State  as  well  as  by 
those  immediately  concerned. 

At  any  rate  an  adequate  and  well-enforced  State  housing  law 
would  eliminate  many  of  the  most  menacing  of  the  present  condi- 
tions. Experience  has  shown  that,  while  such  laws  are  easy  to  pass, 


19 

they  frequently  go  unenforced.  This  has  been  due  largely  to  the 
fact  that  throughout  the  United  States  we  rely  almost  wholly  upon 
local  agencies  for  the  enforcement  of  such  laws  when  they  are 
passed.  It  is  believed  that  the  conditions  already  described  make  it 


In  this  cainp  in  Williamson  County  there  are  210  company-owned  houses. 


Old  style   colorless   company   houses   in   another   Williamson   County   Camp.     The 
newer  houses  have  porches  and  are  painted. 

clear  that  in  all  the  camps  and  many  of  the  smaller  towns  this 
would  mean  no  enforcement.  Illinois  needs  State  enforced  housing 
standards  below  which  no  community  can  fall  but  wh»ch  any  com- 
munity may  raise. 


20 

ILLITERACY  AMONG  THE  MINERS  AND  THE  EDUCA- 
TIONAL OPPORTUNITIES  OF  THE  MINING  TOWNS. 

Attempts  to  show  that  a  knowledge  of  English  could  be  made 
a  test  of  loyalty  to  American  ideals  or  of  the  moral  worth  of  the 
individual  have  always  failed.  So  also  have  attempts  to  promote  a 
love  of  the  United  States  by  disparaging  the  cultural,  spiritual,  or 
economic  contributions  of  the  non-English  speaking  nationalities. 
In  determining  the  per  cent  in  the  Illinois  mining  towns  who  have 
not  learned  to  read,  write,  or  speak  English,  or  have  not  become 
citizens,  the  Commission  has  attempted  to  do  neither  of  the  above. 
It  has,  however,  assumed  that  for  participation  in  the  life  of  the 
community  a  knowledge  of  English  is  necessary.  It  is  important, 
therefore,  to  both  the  individual  and  the  community  that  it  be 
within  the  range  of  reasonable  possibility  for  all  those  who  reside  in 
the  United  States  to  learn  English  and  become  acquainted  with 
current  community  problems  and  their  historical  setting.  The 
important  fact  which  emerged  from  this  study  was  not  so  much  the 
numbers  who  are  still  separated  from  us  by  language  barriers  but 
the  almost  complete  lack  of  provision  which  had  been  made  for  the 
removal  of  that  barrier. 

It  may  be  safely  assumed  that  all  foreign-born  residents  would 
like  to  know  English.  This  desire  is  weakened  by  many  facts.  Our 
language  must  be  learned  by  these  men  and  women  during  the 
leisure  hours  that  come  after  a  long  working  day.  This  is  the  most 
important  reason  why  the  desire  to  learn  English  remains  for  many 
a  mere  desire.  After  a  miner  has  acquired  the  vocabulary  of  his 
work  more  English  is  of  little  economic  value  to  him,  as  most  of 
the  foreign  born  in  the  mining  towns  remain  miners  or  miners' 
helpers.  To  become  licensed  miners  they  must  wrork  two  years  at 
the  face  of  the  mine  and  take  an  examination  which  is  given  in 
English.  This  examination  is,  however,  a  technical  one  and  a 
knowledge  of  the  working  terms,  together  with  the  practical  experi- 
ence they  have  had,  is  said  to  enable  them  to  pass  it  without 
general  English  vocabulary. 

The  men  then  do  not  need  to  know  English  either  to  hold  a  job 
or  to  get  the  first  promotion.  But,  although  not  an  economic  neces- 
sity, they  realize  the  value  of  a  knowledge  of  the  language  of  the 
country.  They  know  they  are  handicapped  at  the  union  meetings, 
which  are  conducted  in  English;  they  know  how  difficult  travel  is 


21 

for  them  and  how  shut  off  they  are  from  Americans  because  they  do 
not  speak  our  language.  Even  those  who  do  not  expect  to  remain  in 
the  United  States  would  be  glad  to  return  with  a  knowledge  of 
English.  Despite  the  seeming  acquiescence  in  their  isolation,  it 
may  be  assumed  that  all  of  them  desire  American  contacts, 
and  although  it  is  the  cause  of  many  a  heartache,  are  proud  of  their 
Americanized  children.  To  what  extent  they  are  offered  an  oppor- 
tunity to  share  in  what  is  available  for  their  children  is  the  ques- 
tion of  real  importance. 

In  the  26  mining  towns  and  cities  covered  in  the  investigation 
only  four  offered  classes  of  any  kind  for  adults  last  year.  In  three 
of  these  communities,  evening  classes  were  held  in  the  school  build- 
ing and  taught  by  day-school  teachers,  but  the  expenses  of  the 
classes  were  met  out  of  a  fee  charged  those  who  attended.  These 
were  men  who  were  being  coached  for  their  naturalization  examina- 
tions. In  the  fourth  place,  Springfield,  there  has  been  a  regular 
evening  school;  since  its  legality1  was  questioned,  the  school  has 
been  kept  open  by  contributions  mainly  from  the  Daughters  of  the 
American  Kevolution. 

It  is  not  surprising  therefore  to  find,  as  the  following  table 
shows,  that  only  63  out  of  556  men  and  16  out  of  527  women  from 
whom  schedules  were  secured  were  able  to  both  read  and  write 
English.  Forty-nine  other  men  and  11  other  women  were  able  to 
read  but  not  to  write  the  language.  A  larger  number,  421  men  and 
247  women,  had  learned  to  speak  English — many  of  them  very 
poorly  but  still  sufficiently  to  make  themselves  understood  at  work 
or  at  the  store.  While  only  80  of  the  men  and  107  of  the  women 
were  unable  to  read  and  write  in  their  native  language,  493  of  the 
men  and  509  of  the  women  were  illiterate  from  an  English  stand- 
point. 

The  immigrant  women  always  have  more  difficulty  in  learning 
English.  In  some  of  the  mining  towns  the  feeling  that  a  woman 
only  needs  to  know  how  to  look  after  the  housework  affects  not  only 
the  learning  of  English  by  the  mothers  but  is  the  cause  of  the  girls 
being  kept  out  of  school  at  the  earliest  possible  date,  sometimes  in 
violation  of  the  compulsory  education  law.  In  a  few  places  some 
efforts  had  been  made  to  break  down  this  prejudice.  In  one  town, 
for  example,  the  priest  had  organized  a  class  for  the  women,  but 


'See  Report  on  Educational  Needs  of  the  Immigrants  in  Illinois. 


22 


although  a  number  of  them  came  they  were  said  to  be  so  timid  that 
little  progress  was  made. 

Of  the  556  men  from  whom  education  was  secured,  163  had  come 
to  the  United  States  before  they  were  twenty-one  years  of  age  and 
259  had  lived  in  the  same  town  in  Illinois  for  at  least  ten  years. 

If  the  men  are  going  to  learn  to  speak  English  they  seem  to  do 
it  usually  during  the  first  five  years  of  their  residence  in  the  United 
States ;  but  with  the  women,  whose  contacts  are  much  more  gradu- 
ally acquired,  this  is  not  true.  Thus  92  per  cent  of  the  men 
scheduled  who  had  been  here  five  years  and  less  than  ten  years  had 
learned  to  speak  English ;  while  the  same  per  cent  of  those  who  had 
been  here  twenty  years  and  over  could  speak  it.  In  the  case  of  the 
women  the  per  cent  speaking  English  was  49  among  those  who  had 

ILLITERACY  OF  MEN  AND  WOMEN  FROM  WHOM  SCHEDULES  WERE  SECURED 
DISTRIBUTED  BY  COUNTIES  AND  BY  SEX. 


COUNTY 

Total 

Number 
Illiterate 
on 
Arrival 

NUMBER  ILLITERATE  AT  PRESENT 

Unable  to 
speak 
English 

Unable  to 
read 
English 

Unable  to 
both  read 
and  write 
English 

MEN 

Williamson  .  . 

239 
74 
128 
115 

38 
10 
17 
15 

54 
13 
31 
37 

212 
67 
86 
99 

215 
71 
102 
105 

Franklin  

Sangamon  

Bureau  

Total  

556 

80 

135 

464 

493 

WOMEN 

Williamson  

235 
70 
113 
109 

44 
15 
33 
15 

140 
33 
39 
70 

227 
67 
106 
100 

229 
57 
111 
102 

Franklin  

Sangamon  

Bureau  

Total  

527 

107 

282 

500 

509 

been  here  five  years  and  less  than  ten  and  81  per  cent  among  those 
*vho  had  been  here  twenty  years  and  over.  Among  both  men  an*? 
women  a  longer  period  of  residence  meant  that  a  larger  per  cent 
learned  to  read  and  write  English.  Thus  only  8  per  cent  of  the  men 
and  2  per  cent  of  the  women  scheduled  who  had  been  here  five  years 


23 

and  less  than  ten  years  had  learned  to  read  and  write  the  language, 
while  the  percentages  among  those  who  had  been  here  twenty  years 
and  more  were  16  among  the  men  and  14  among  the  women. 

In  one  of  the  larger  towns  of  Williamson  County  in  which  there 
is  an  unusually  high  per  cent  of  Americans  it  seemed  as  though 
surely  the  educational  needs  could  be  met  by  the  community,  but 
school  officials  pointed  out  what  seemed  to  them  insuperable 
difficulties  in  offering  opportunities  for  the  foreign-born  men  and 
women  to  learn  English.  None  of  the  schools  were  conveniently 
located  or  equipped  for  an  adult  school,  there  was  no  money  to  pay 
the  teachers  and  it  was  felt  the  teachers  ought  not  to  be  asked  to 
volunteer  their  services.  Of  the  52  men  in  the  town  from  whom 
information  was  secured  only  six  could  read  and  write  English, 
seven  could  read  but  not  write  it,  while  48  had  learned  to  speak  it ; 
of  the  49  women  only  3  could  read  and  write  English  and  22  had  no 
speaking  knowledge  of  it  whatever.  Ten  of  the  men  and  10  of  the 
women  were  not  able  to  read  and  write  their  native  language.  The 
superintendent  of  schools,  who  served  on  the  Draft  Committee,  said 
that  during  the  war  10  per  cent  of  the  drafted  men  could  not  sign 
their  names. 

EDUCATIONAL  OPPORTUNITIES  FOR  CHILDREN  INADEQUATE 

In  addition  to  the  almost  total  lack  of  educational  facilities  for 
adults,  most  of  the  mining  towns  and  camps  of  the  southern  counties 
do  not  offer  children  what  we  should  regard  as  an  American 
standard  of  education.  The  miners  and  the  miners'  wives  of  Wil- 
liamson and  Franklin  Counties  complained  again  and  again  of  the 
poor  schools  the  children  attended.  The  cause  was  usually  a  lack  of 
funds.  The  schools  are  largely  supported  by  local  taxation;  the 
miners  have  little  accumulated  wealth  to  tax ;  the  mines  are  usually 
located  outside  the  school  districts  in  which  the  miners  and  their 
children  live,  so  the  mines  are  taxed  for  the  much  smaller  school 
population  of  a  rural  district.  Some  of  the  towns  have  special 
difficulties.  For  example,  in  Freeman,  a  town  which  is  partly  in 
Franklin  and  partly  in  Williamson  County,  the  only  school  is  on  the 
edge  of  the  settlement  on  the  Franklin  County  side.  This  means  a 
two  miles'  walk  to  school  for  many  of  the  children.  The  parents 
complained  that  this  was  too  far  for  the  little  children  to  go,  par- 
ticularly in  winter  and  during  muddy  weather.  The  dirt  road 
becomes  almost  impossible  during  some  seasons  of  the  year;  the 


24 

only  alternative  is  what  is  regarded  as  a  dangerous  road  around  a 
mine  switch.  The  Italians  also  complained  that  they  were  particu- 
larly apprehensive  about  the  moral  safety  of  the  older  girls,  as  the 
school  was  located  in  the  woods  and  there  was  not  proper  super- 
vision during  recess.  But  even  worse  than  the  long  walk, 
overcrowded  classes  await  the  Williamson  County  children  when 
they  reach  the  school.  Last  year  there  were  three  teachers  and  one 
of  them  had  105  pupils.  The  school  term  was  seven  months.  The 
children,  nearly  all  foreign  born  and  many  of  them  coming  from 
non-English  speaking  homes,  needed  the  most  skilled  teaching  and 
a  longer  school  year. 

During  the  long  summer  months  a  six  weeks'  private  school  is 
held  in  one  of  the  school  buildings.  The  tuition  is  $3.00  or  $4.00, 
the  rate  varying  with  the  age  of  the  children.  The  summer  of  1920 
there  were  usually  about  forty  children  in  the  school,  which  was 
taught  by  two  inexperienced  eighth-grade  graduates.  One  of  the 
teachers  complained  that  "it  was  impossible  for  the  boys  to  learn 
much,  because  they  entered  school  late  and  usually  left  before  they 
had  learned  to  read  and  write  to  any  extent." 

In  one  of  the  company-owned  towns  one  teacher  in  a  primary 
grade  had  ninety-one  pupils.  In  such  towns  there  were,  of  course, 
no  classes  for  adults  and  no  prospect  of  any  until  school  conditions 
for  the  children  were  improved. 

The  school  situation  in  Bureau  County  is  much  better  than  in 
Williamson  and  Franklin  Counties.  Mines  and  valuable  farm  lands 
are  usually  inside  the  school  districts  in  which  the  mining  towns  are 
located.  The  children  stay  in  school  longer.  In  the  township  high 
school  at  Spring  Valley  many  of  the  pupils  are  from  foreign  families 
and  investigators  were  told  of  some  ten  Italians  and  Lithuanians 
who  have  gone  on  to  college.  There  were  no  classes  for  adults  last 
year  in  the  county,  but  there  have  been  some  in  the  past.  The 
foreign  born  themselves  frequently  show  considerable  impatience 
with  those  who  have  not  learned  English,  saying  they  could  have 
picked  it  up  if  they  had  wanted  to.  While  a  large  per  cent  of  the 
men  knew  English,  the  women  were  as  isolated  in  Bureau  as  in  the 
other  counties.  Forty-five  of  109  could  speak  no  English ;  only  2  had 
learned  to  read  and  write  it  (one  of  these  was  a  girl  who  came  when 
she  was  eleven  years  of  age  but  had  never  been  to  school  in  the 
United  States).  One  of  the  45  who  could  not  speak  English  was 


25 

American  born,  had  returned  to  Italy  when  she  was  eight  years  of 
age  and  had  come  back  to  the  United  States  when  she  was  sixteen. 


A  mine  near  a  Williamson  County  Camp. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  under  present  conditions  in  Wil- 
liamson and  Franklin  Counties  English  will  be  the  language  in  the 
home  of  the  immigrant  families.  Because  the  women  are  almost  as 
isolated  in  Sangainon,  in  spite  of  a  longer  residence,  this  is  also  true 
of  that  county.  In  only  27  of  the  128  homes  in  which  schedules  were 
taken  in  Sangamou  County  was  English  the  language  of  the  home. 
In  Bureau  County,  where  the  immigrants  are  older  settlers,  English 
as  well  as  a  foreign  language  is  spoken  in  44  out  of  the  115  homes 
covered  in  the  investigation. 

This  means  increased  difficulty  in  the  teaching  of  the  children, 
which  there  is  at  present  no  preparation  for  meeting.1  Short  terms, 
overcrowded  rooms,  poorly  enforced  truancy  laws,  lack  of  recrea- 
tional facilities,  all  make  the  problem  of  the  education  of  the  miners' 
children  a  serious  one.  The  immigrant  parents  appreciate  this  fact ; 
the  amounts  they  are  spending  in  proportion  to  their  wealth  indi- 
cates greater  sacrifice  for  education  on  their  part  than  in  commun- 
ities in  which  the  same  tax  rate  provides  excellent  schools,  so  that 
apparently  help  must  come  from  other  sources. 

In  its  Report  on  the  "Educational  Need*  of  Immigrants  in  Illi- 
nois," the  Commission  has  recommended  that  (1)  communities  shall 
be  required  to  maintain  day  or  evening  classes  for  persons  who  are 
unable  to  read,  write,  and  speak  English  and  who  are  over  the  age 
of  compulsory  full-time  attendance  at  day  school,  (2)  that  all 


26 

persons  under  21  years  of  age  who  are  unable  to  meet  the  educa- 
tional requirements  for  work  permits  under  the  State  ChDd-Labor 
Law  shall  be  required  to  attend  day  or  evening  classes,  (3)  that 
special  work  in  behalf  of  the  immigrant  women  shall  be  under- 
taken, (4)  that  the  State  should  adopt  a  training  program  for 
teachers  of  immigrant  classes,  (5)  that  it  shall  undertake  to  reach 
the  older  men  and  women  with  moving  pictures,  lectures  in  their 
own  language,  etc.,  and  (6)  that  both  Federal  and  State  aid  should 
be  granted  local  communities  for  the  education  of  adult  illiterates. 
The  illiteracy  and  lack  of  educational  opportunities  in  these  mining 
towns  and  camps  makes  it  imperative  that  this  program  be  promptly 
carried  out. 

NATURALIZATION 

The  increased  consciousness  of  our  citizenship  status  which 
came  with  the  war  extended  to  the  mining  communities  of  Illinois. 
The  per  cent  of  men  interviewed  in  the  course  of  the  investigation 
who  had  become  naturalized  varies  in  the  different  counties.  In 
Saugamon  63  per  cent  of  these  had  secured  their  second  papers ;  in 
Bureau  58  per  cent,  while  in  Williamson  and  Franklin  Counties 
only  19  per  cent  had  certificates  of  naturalization.  In  individual 
towns  the  differences  were  even  greater.  In  Zeigler,  although  60 
per  cent  of  the  population  is  said  to  be  forign  born,  "you  can  count 
on  your  fingers  the  number  of  naturalized  voters",  according  to  a 
local  official.  In  Herrin  local  officials  estimated  that  about  four- 
fifths  of  the  fathers  of  the  foreign-born  families  were  voters  but  only 
20  of  the  76  interviewed  by  the  Commission's  investigators  had 
their  final  papers  and  only  18  others  had  declared  their  intention  of 
becoming  citizens. 

This  difference  is  largely  determined  by  the  age  of  the  settle- 
ment. The  men  in  the  northern  and  central  fields  have  usually  lived 
there  much  longer  and  many  of  them  before  1906,  when  it  was 
possible  to  arrange  for  naturalization  en  masse  before  an  election. 
In  these  communities  men  belonging  to  the  so-called  newer  immi- 
gration from  southern  and  eastern  Europe  are  not  only  voters  but 
are  frequently  office  holders  in  the  community. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  a  larger  per  cent  of  the  men  in  all 
these  counties  were  not  citizens.  Ignorance  of  naturalization  require- 
ments was  sometimes  the  explanation.  One  man  who  had  taken  out 
his  first  papers  more  than  seven  years  ago  thought  he  was  entitled 


27 

to  vote  because  he  had  registered  for  military  service.  In  general, 
however,  those  interviewed  were  found  to  be  fairly  familiar  with 
the  requirements  of  the  law ;  many  had  experienced  difficulties  in 
meeting  them. 

For  example,  much  difficulty  is  experienced  in  securing  proper 
witnesses.  In  Williamson  County,  of  52  petitioners  for  naturaliza- 
tion at  the  spring  term  of  the  Naturalization  Court  only  17  got 
their  papers.  The  judge  reported  that  most  of  the  applications 
were  refused  because  of  incompetent  witnesses  or  were  continued 
because  the  men  were  still  classified  as  alien  enemies.  Occasionally 
this  is  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  requirements  of  the  law, 
but  many  of  the  men  have  moved  about  so  frequently  that  it  is  very 
difficult  for  some  of  them  to  get  citizens  who  have  known  them  five 
years  to  act  as  witnesses.  One  man  whose  witnesses  "went  back  on 
him'',  reported  that  he  "tried  it  three  times  before  he  was  finally 
naturalized,  and  had  spent  $125.00." 

The  cost  of  naturalization  is  also  a  deterrent.  It  made  some 
of  the  men  who  did  not  feel  sure  of  their  English  hesitate  to  apply, 
although  others  philosophically  remarked  that  "it  cost  a  lot,  but 
you  have  to  expect  that."  Distance  from  the  county  seat  often 
explains  the  cost  in  part  Thus  in  Williamson  County  there  were 
no  convenient  trains  from  several  of  the  towns.  From  Bush  the 
men  hire  an  automobile  which  takes  them  to  Herrin — $7.00  for  the 
round  trip — and  they  then  go  by  trolley  to  Marion.  It  is  difficult 
to  get  to  the  court  for  naturalization  from  Cherry,  Bureau  County, 
because  there  are  no  convenient  trains.  Here  the  estimate  was  that 
it  costs  a  man  $30.00  to  $40.00,  and  as  many  of  them  know  "more  if 
the  case  is  continued." 

In  some  of  the  towns  evidence  was  found  of  a  desire  to  deny 
citizenship  to  those  who  took  or  did  not  take  a  certain  position  with 
reference  to  some  question  on  which  citizens  were  themselves  much 
divided.  Thus  in  one  of  the  southern  counties  the  Naturalization 
Examiner1  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Labor  believed  that 
those  who  quit  work  during  the  Autumn  of  1919,  in  defiance  of  the 
injunction  granted  at  the  request  of  the  Attorney  General,  should 
not  be  considered  loyal  within  the  meaning  of  the  naturalization 
law.  He  had  examined  a  number  of  ex-soldiers,  who  were  strikers 
and  entitled  to  special  consideration  under  the  naturalization  law 


'The  Secretary  of  Labor  reports  that  this  was  done  on  the  Examiner's  own   re- 
sponsibility and  not  under  directions  from  Washington. 


28 

because  of  their  military  service ;  he  had  them  make  affidavits  to  the 
effect  that  they  knew  they  were  striking  in  defiance  of  the  United 
States  laws  and  because  they  regarded  their  allegiance  to  the  Union 
as  superior  to  their  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  These  affidavits 
were  turned  in  to  the  judge  with  the  recommendation  that  their 
petitions  should  be  denied.  The  judge  found,  on  cross  examination, 
that  the  men  had  not  understood  the  affidavits  they  were  signing, 
that  they  struck  not  because  the  Union  required  it  but  because  the 
other  men,  many  of  whom  were  already  citizens,  were  striking  and 
because  they  saw  no  other  way  of  improving  their  condition.  The 
judge,  therefore,  granted  their  petitions  if  they  were  in  other 
respects  qualified.  In  a  region  such  as  this,  where  practically  all 
the  miners  were  members  of  the  union,  an  episode  of  this  sort  might 
have  prevented  many  from  becoming  citizens  and  have  introduced 
new  complications  in  a  controversy  already  difficult. 

Some  of  the  men,  particularly  those  who  lived  in  a  company- 
owned  camp,  felt  that  there  is  little  use  of  their  being  citizens  or 
voters.  Thus  one  man  who  had  lived  for  fourteen  years  in  the  same 
camp  said  quite  hopelessly,  "I  never  leave  the  camp,  so  why  should 
I  have  papers  (citizenship)  ?" 

In  view  of  what  has  already  been  said  about  the  almost  total 
lack  of  educational  opportunities  for  adults  in  the  twenty-six  min- 
ing towns  visited,  it  seems  unnecessary  to  point  out  that  the 
difficulty  of  acquiring  English  and  of  preparing  for  the  examination 
in  civics  has  deterred  many  from  trying  to  become  citizens.  One 
man  in  Franklin  County  put  it  "you  must  know  good  English  now," 
to  become  naturalized.  In  the  absence  of  classes  special  assistance 
must  be  secured;  "a  friend,"  "the  priest,"  "a  union  official,"  (one 
who  was  interviewed  was  taking  a  correspondence  course)  had 
helped  most  of  them  to  acquire  sufficient  English  to  pass  the  exam- 
ination. In  Franklin  County  the  judge  spoke  of  the  larger  per  cent 
of  those  who  came  up  for  examination  who  were  able  to  pass  during 
the  war  when  classes,  since  abandoned,  were  organized  for  the  men 
in  many  of  the  towns. 

Special  concern  was  expressed  in  Sangamon  County  about  the 
women  who  were  widows  and  who  must  become  citizens  in  order  to 
hold  their  mothers'  pensions.  Almost  a  third  of  the  women  inter- 
viewed in  Sangamon  County  were  illiterate  on  arrival  and  have  not 
learned  to  read  and  write  here.  For  such  women  preparation  for 


29 

the  citizenship  tests  is  a  very  serious  undertaking.  In  Springfield 
the  court  has  adopted  the  custom  of  requiring  that  the  women  begin 
the  study  of  English  before  the  pension  is  granted.  If  they  have  no 
one  to  help  them  learn,  but  are  willing  to  try,  some  one  is  secured 
to  help  them.  In  the  isolated  camps  and  smaller  towns  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  secure  such  assistance. 

In  the  Report  on  the  Educational  ATeed«  o/  the  Immigrant  this 
problem  of  the  non-English  speaking  mother  has  been  discussed  in 
greater  detail.  It  is  one  which  exists  in  industrial  as  well  as  min- 
ing towns.  Experiments  as  to  methods  of  teaching  and  ways  of 
meeting  and  breaking  down  the  isolation  of  the  women  are  greatly 
needed. 

THE  PROFITS  OF  THE  MINER 

Before  the  war  the  wage  scale  for  the  mines  was  negotiated  by 
the  mine  operators  and  the  Union.  During  the  war  the  Fuel  Admin- 
istration was  an  important  factor  in  these  negotiations.  Since  the 
Armistice  there  has  been  much  public  discussion,  bitterness,  and 
confusion  in  connection  with  rate-fixing,  and  a  long  controversy  as 
to  whether  agreements  made  for  the  period  of  the  War  were  or  were 
not  still  binding,  and  whether  the  government  control  should  be 
continued.  In  the  discussion  of  hours  and  wages  there  has  been 
little  appreciation  on  the  part  of  the  public  of  a  most  important 
factor  in  the  problem.  Most  of  the  men  work  on  a  tonnage  basis, 
so  that,  as  for  all  piece  work,  the  saying  is  "the  miner  is  paid  what 
he  earns."  His  own  skill  is,  however,  not  the  only  factor  in  his 
earnings.  In  the  United  States  as  a  whole  the  annual  and  the  daily 
output  of  coal  per  underground  worker  is  greater  than  in  any 
country  in  the  world,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  working 
year  is  usually  shorter  here  than  in  other  countries.1  Whether  the 
coal  bed  is  faulty,  whether  the  seam  is  thin  or  deep,  whether  ma- 
chinery can  be  and  is  used,  the  general  mine  equipment,  the  car 
supply,  and  the  accident  rate  are  among  the  factors  that  determine 
\\  hat  the  worker  can  earn.  These  factors,  with  the  same  wage  scale, 
produce  the  greatest  inequalities  in  payment  from  mine  to  mine  and 
field  to  field.  They  are,  however,  factors  which  the  miner  knows, 
and  he  is  able  to  forecast  what  his  earnings  will  be  if  he  has  the 


Labor  ReHev,  Vol.  XI.   No.  3    (September,   1920),  p.   118.     Reprint  of 
U.  S.  Bureau  of  Mines  Report  of  Investigations,  Serial  No.  2145. 


30 

opportunity  to  work.    What  he  does  not  know  is  how  many  days  of 
work  he  will  have.    This  is  true  in  Illinois  as  in  other  mining  states. 

In  the  year  ending  July  1,  1919,  out  of  38  counties  in  which  at 
least  100  men  were  employed  in  mining  there  were  only  11  counties 
in  which,  out  of  a  possible  308  working  days,  the  average  number  of 
days  worked  was  200;  in  only  3  counties  was  the  average  as  high 
as  225.1 

The  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois  does  not  give  the  wages  the 
men  receive ;  no  pay-roll  study  was  attempted,  and  the  men  in  most 
cases  do  not  know  accurately  what  their  yearly  earnings  are.  The 
men  usually  do  know  pretty  accurately  what  their  highest  and 
lowest  pay  checks  have  been.  This  question  was  asked  those  who 
were  interviewed  in  the  course  of  the  investigation.  In  Bureau 
Count}',  out  of  96  men  from  whom  schedules  were  secured,  only  18 
said  they  had  ever  received  as  much  as  $80.00  (payments  are 
made  every  two  weeks),  and  not  one  of  them  had  had  as  much  as 
$90.00.  For  some  the  maximum  pay  check  was  $60.00  and  $65.00. 
The  minimum  sometimes  ran  as  low  as  $5.00,  $10.00,  and  $12.00.  In 
Bureau  County  the  men  who  were  paid  on  the  day  basis  were  con- 
sidered the  best  paid,  while  in  the  richer  southern  fields  exactly  the 
reverse  was  true.  The  range  of  payment  in  Franklin  and  William- 
son counties  was  much  higher. 

In  the  southern  counties  one  man  reported  a  check  of  $156.00 
for  two  weeks'  work.  He  is  a  shot  firer,  a  Lithuanian,  who  was  36 
years  of  age  when  he  came  to  the  United  States ;  has  been  here  ten 
years,  and  has  lived  eight  years  in  this  town.  His  lowest  pay 
check  was  $3.00  in  1919.  He  reports  his  yearly  earnings  as  $2,400. 
The  man  has  a  wife  and  four  children,  owns  his  own  home,  and  has 
a  cow  and  chickens.  He  still  hopes  to  be  able  to  farm. 

Some  other  concrete  examples  are : 

A  Russian  Pole,  was  37  years  old  when  he  came  to  the  United 
States,  and  has  lived  for  seven  years  in  the  town  in  which  he  was 
interviewed.  His  maximum  pay  check  was  $92.00  for  two  weeks' 
work  in  1919,  the  lowest  $12.00.  His  wife  reports  that  their  bills  at 
the  company  store  are  usually  $40.00  to  $45.00  and  that  he  often 
draws  very  little  in  cash.  He  has  four  children,  and  he  has  saved 
enough  to  buy  an  automobile. 


thirty-eighth  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois,  Table  35.  In  the  four  counties 
covered  In  this  Investigation  the  average  number  of  days  worked  was  as  follows : 
Bureau  206,  Franklin  202,  Sangamon  225,  and  Williamson  183. 


31 

A  Ruthenian,  has  lived  eighteen  years  in  the  United  States, 
eight  years  in  Illinois,  and  four  years  in  the  camp  in  which  he  now 
lives.  His  highest  check  in  1919  was  $60.00.  He  reports  that  he 
earned  about  $900.00  that  year.  He  has  a  wife  and  three  children, 
the  oldest  eight  years  of  age.  He  has  one  boarder,  who  pays  $7.50  a 
week.  The  wife  says  they  "spend  everything  they  earn  for  food." 
They  trade  at  the  Union  store  when  they  have  money.  They  can  get 
credit  at  the  Ruthenian  grocery  store  when  work  is  slack. 

A  Croatian,  was  36  years  of  age  on  arrival  in  the  United 
States  and  six  years  in  Illinois.  His  highest  pay  check  in  1919  was 
148.00,  and  his  lowest  $8.00.  He  usually  gets  from  $30.00  to  $40.00. 
He  estimates  his  annual  earnings  at  $900.00.  He  has  six  children ; 
the  two  oldest  are  employed  in  the  mine  on  a  $3.00  a  day  rate.  His 
wife  says  that  they  spend  about  $35.00  every  two  weeks  for  food  and 
that  they  are  always  in  debt. 

A  Croatian,  was  thirty-six  years  of  age  on  arrival  in  the  United 
States  and  came  to  the  town  in  which  he  now  lives  fourteen  years 
ago.  During  1919  his  highest  pay  check  was  $80.00  for  two  weeks' 
work.  Often  his  pay  check  was  as  low  as  $10.00  or  $15.00.  His  wife 
reports  that  it  costs  about  $30.00  every  two  weeks  for  food.  There 
are  seven  children,  the  oldest  11  years  of  age.  He  belongs  to  a 
Croatian  benevolent  society. 

In  Sangamon  County  work  was  as  a  whole  more  regular  than 
in  Williamson  or  Franklin  counties.  Still,  in  the  individual  mines, 
there  is  much  irregularity.  One  man  whose  highest  pay  check  was 
$145.00  had  a  total  yearly  income  of  $1,776.00.  Another  who  was 
36  years  of  age  on  arrival,  has  been  twenty  years  in  the  United 
States  and  thirteen  in  Springfield,  had  received  a  maximum 
pay  check  of  $110.00  and  a  minimum  one  of  $8.00  in  1919.  He 
thinks  his  average  has  been  about  $40.00.  He  has  seven  children, 
the  oldest  9  years  of  age. 

This  irregularity  of  work  not  only  means  that  the  yearly  in- 
come is  far  below  what  the  rates  of  pay  would  lead  the  public  to 
expect,  but  it  means  that  a  wise  expenditure  of  what  they  do 
receive  is  impossible.  A  budget  system  cannot  be  planned  on  this 
uncertain  outlook.  As  one  discouraged  mother  said,  ''You  put  it  in 
the  bank  today  and  have  to  draw  it  out  next  pay  day."  Alternating 
between  a  large  check  and  a  very  small  one  and  credit  usually  means 
foolish  expenditures  when  the  pay  is  exceptionally  good  and  depri- 


32 

ration  when  the  pay  envelope  is  slim.  The  accidents  which  are 
almost  the  common  lot  of  the  miner  complicate  very  greatly  this 
problem  of  making  both  ends  meet. 

THE  HAZARDS  OF  THE  MINER 

There  had  been  no  great  mining  disasters  in  Illinois  before  the 
Cherry  Fire,  when  259  men  were  killed,  and  there  has  been  none 
since  that  time.  There  have  been  only  two  mining  disasters  in  the 
United  States  resulting  in  a  greater  number  of  fatalities.  Cherry  is 
to  Illinois  a  warning  of  the  kind  of  tragedy  that  may,  but  we 
believe  never  will,  occur  again.  However,  every  year  there  are  some 
fatal  accidents  and  a  very  much  larger  number  of  non-fatal  ones. 
Falling  slate,  rock  and  coal ;  gas,  powder  and  shot  explosions ;  trol- 
ley wires,  mine  cars  and  locomotives ;  falling  down  shafts  and  other 
accidents  take  their  yearly  toll  of  men. 

The  rate  of  men  killed  for  every  1,000  employed  in  the  mines  of 
Illinois1  was  2.43  in  1914;  1.80  in  1915 ;  1.69  in  1916  and  2.77  in  both 
1917  and  1918.  Of  the  208  fatal  accidents  in  1919,  116  of  the  men 
were  American  born  and  92  foreign  born.2  The  non-fatal  accidents 
are,  of  course,  much  more  frequent.  In  the  State  138,811  days  were 
lost  during  the  year  ending  July  1,  1919,  by  2,515  men  who  were 
injured  and  returned  to  work.3  In  Williamson  County  alone  there 
were  323  men  during  that  year  who  were  so  seriously  injured  that 
they  lost  thirty  or  more  days  Of  work.  Altogether  18,967  days  of 
work  were  lost  by  these  men  in  Williamson  County.3  In  Franklin 
County,  during  the  year  1919,  one  man  out  of  every  thirty-two 
employed  in  the  mines  was  injured  so  that  he  lost  at  least  thirty 
days  of  work  and  the  time  lost  through  injuries  of  this  magnitude 
amounted  to  29,784  days.4  The  actual  loss  of  time  would  be  shown 
to  be  much  greater  if  the  minor  injuries  which  require  men  to  stay 
at  home  a  few  days  or  a  few  weeks  were  included. 


irrhese  figures  are  open  to  the  general  criticism  which  can  be  made  against  most 
accident  figures  in  the  United  States.  As  they  do  not  take  into  consideration  the 
number  of  hours  the  men  are  employed  the  accident  exposure  rate  cannot  be 
determined. 

*Of  this  number  23  were  Italian,  15r  were  Lithuanian,  12  Austrian.  7  Scotch,  5 
German,  5  Russian  and  the  remaining  were  representatives  of  eleven  other  nationali- 
ties. Thirty-eighth  Annual  Coal  Report  of  Illinois,  1919.  Table  24,  p.  80. 

•Ibid.,  Table  29,  p.  86. 

*These  figures  do  not  include  time  lost  by  twenty  men  in  Williamson  and  two  men 
In  Franklin  Counties  who  had  not  returned  to  work  at  the  end  of  the  year. 


33 

The  Compensation  Law  has  made  payment  for  injuries  much 
more  certain  and  so  has  reduced  the  family  suffering  which  used  to 
be  incident  to  a  miner's  accident.  Still  half-pay  means  real  priva- 
tion and  even  this  is  not  always  collected.  The  Miners'  Union  main- 
tains a  legal  department,  which  looks  after  the  men's  cases,  but  still 
unfair  settlements  are  sometimes  accepted  through  ignorance  or  to 
avoid  the  delay  of  an  appeal  to  the  Industrial  Board. 

THE  MIXER'S  WIDOW 

In  case  of  an  injury  resulting  in  death,  the  law  allows  the 
widow  and  children  four  times  half  the  man's  annual  earnings,  pro- 
viding this  in  no  case  amounts  to  less  than  fl,650  or  more  than 
$4,000.  Insurance  is  carried  by  many  of  the  men,  usually  little  moiv 
than  enough  to  defray  their  funeral  expenses,  the  union  pays  a 
death  benefit,  and  a  collection  is  often  taken  locally.  The  large 
number  whose  husbands  die  of  "flu",  pneumonia,  or  other  non- 
industrial  diseases  have  only  the  union  benefit,  the  insurance  if 
there  is  any  and  the  collection  made  by  friends  larger  in  such  cases 
than  when  the  death  is  caused  by  an  industrial  accident.  When 
these  resources  are  exhausted,  the  widow  in  southern  Illinois  must 
look  abroad  for  relief.  Everyone  who  has  done  relief  work  in 
Chicago  has  encountered  these  widows  of  miners  who  have  been 
helped  with  transportation  to  the  city.  They  come  from  southern 
Illinois,  from  West  Virginia,  or  Pennsylvania  to  Chicago  because 
they  cannot  possibly  live  in  the  community  on  which,  under  the 
theory  of  our  law,  they  should  be  a  charge.  In  the  smaller  mining 
towns  or  camps  only  one  or  two  women  can  support  themselves 
washing  and  taking  boarders,  so  these  opportunities,  wretched  at 
best,  are  soon  exhausted.  In  some  mining  districts  an  overall  or 
box  factory  has  been  established  on  the  theory  that  it  can  utilize  for 
its  labor  supply  the  miners'  daughters  and  the  boys  who  are  too 
young  for  the  mines,  but  these  come  only  to  a  good-sized  or  older 
settlement.  In  most  cases  there  is  only  the  mine  in  which  employ- 
ment of  the  women,  the  girls  and  the  boys  under  sixteen  years  of 
age  is  prohibited  by  law. 

In  theory,  we  have,  as  a  state,  made  provisions  for  the  widows 
through  our  Mothers'  Pension  Law.  But  this  is  another  example  of 
a  state  law  dependent  entirely  upon  the  local  action  for  its  effective- 
ness. Both  Williamson  and  Franklin  Counties  give  Mothers'  Pen- 
sions usually  to  about  forty-five  women  in  amounts  varying  from 


34 

$5.00  to  |12.00  a  month.  What  can  the  mother  do  under  these 
circumstances  but  move  to  some  other  county?  When  she  arrives 
in  Chicago  she  probably  needs  help  at  once.  This  is  usually  pro- 
vided by  her  country  people  for  a  short  time  and  then  she  is 
directed  to  the  relief  agencies.  The  county  agent  knowing  the  law 
about  non-resident  dependents  and  the  principle  on  which  it  is 
founded — that  every  county  should  care  for  its  own  poor — urges 
her  to  return,  offers  to  pay  her  fare  back  and  refuses  to  help  unless 
she  does  return.  But  she  pays  no  attention  because  she  knows  what 
the  plan  he  suggests  means  for  her  and  her  children.  Helped  by 
private  agencies  and  friends  little  better  off  than  herself,  she  gets 
work  or  the  children  get  work,  until  she  finally  acquires  residence 
and  becomes  eligible  for  public  relief  in  Cook  County. 

In  a  mining  county  like  Sangamon  the  situation  is  much  more 
favorable.  Springfield  has,  of  course,  its  Charity  Organization, 
Infant  Welfare  Society  and  other  private  charities,  but  outside  of 
Springfield  there  are  no  private  agencies  and  public  relief  is  still 
inadequate.  But  the  payments  are  higher  than  in  Williamson  and 
Franklin  Counties.  Last  year  the  Mothers'  Pensions  ranged  from 
$8.00  to  $40.00  a  month  (only  two  were  $8.00  and  these  it  was  said 
would  soon  be  discontinued),  in  Sangamon  County.  The  usual  pen- 
sion is  $25.00,  and  there  are  factories  where  supplementary  employ- 
ment can  usually  be  found  inside  the  county. 

Still  as  a  whole  the  mining  counties  demonstrate  the  suffering 
which  our  theory  of  local  relief  often  entails.  As  in  education  there 
is  no  sound  reason  that  can  be  urged  why  a  county  in  which  the 
accident  rate  is  high,  in  which  much  wealth  is  produced  but  little 
remains  in  the  county,  should  bear  this  burden  alone.  So  far  as  the 
state  is  concerned  it  is  certainly  a  blind  policy  to  continue  to  rely 
on  a  method  of  relief  which  obviously  does  not  and  cannot  assure 
the  widows  and  children  the  protection  and  care  the  law  intends 
shall  be  given  them.  If  work  were  regular  and  pay  adequate,  the 
miners  could  leave  enough  so  that  upon  their  death  their  wives  and 
children  would  not  become  objects  of  either  public  or  private 
charity.  However,  so  long  as  relief  is  still  necessary,  it  should  be 
available  for  these  women  in  their  homes  without  the  suffering  now 
entailed  in  establishing  residence  in  another  county. 


35 

CONSUMERS'  COOPERATION  AMONG  THE  MINERS 

The  miners  of  Southern  Illinois  have  been  pioneers  in  the  recent 
development  of  the  co-operative  movement  in  the  United  States. 
Local  co-operative  societies  were  organized  with  the  active 
encouragement  of  the  State  Federation  of  Labor  about  ten  years 
ago.  With  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  living  during  the  war  the 
number  of  these  stores  increased.  They  differ  very  much  in  their 
history  and  control.  Some  of  them  are  managed  by  Americans  and 
relatively  few  of  the  immigrant  miners  belong;  the  meetings  are 
conducted  entirely  in  English  and  very  little  consideration  is  given 
in  the  purchase  of  the  goods  and  food  stuffs  to  the  customs  peculiar 
to  the  various  immigrant  groups.  The  leaders  in  the  organization 
of  other  stores  have  been  immigrants  who  have  had  some  experience 
in,  or  have  known  of,  the  co-operative  movement  at  home.  In  some 
of  these  a  single  nationality  predominates;  occasionally  only  those 
from  a  single  province  or  district  belong.  For  example,  in  Herrin 
the  Lombard  Society,  originally  organized  as  a  benefit  association 
by  Italians  from  Lombardy,  conducts  a  large  store  which  is  a  com- 
bination meat  market,  grocery  and  dry  goods  store.  While  only 
people  from  Lombardy  are  members,  others  may  patronize  the 
store.  It  has  a  slaughter  house  of  its  own  and  a  large  business  in 
the  surrounding  country  among  North  Italians  especially.  This 
store  forms  a  center  for  the  older  North  Italians  of  the  town,  but 
the  younger  generation  prefers  American  associates  and  American 
customs,  so  its  existence  in  this  particular  form  may  not  be 
permanent. 

In  some  towns  the  local  union  opens  a  store,  slightly  under- 
sells its  competitors  and  the  profits  if  any  belong  to  the  union. 
Agents  of  the  Commission  found  that  the  foreign  born  felt  very 
little  interest  in  these.  As  they  did  not  have  individual  member- 
ships, they  bought  at  the  union  store  when  they  thought  the  articles 
were  cheaper.  Sometimes,  after  a  store  of  this  sort  has  been 
fostered  by  a  union,  it  is  turned  into  a  co-operative  store  and  indi- 
vidual members  of  the  union  form  the  co-operative  society. 

The  question  of  giving  credit  is  a  difficult  one  for  the  co-opera- 
tive store  to  meet.  The  miner  frequently  needs  it  because  his  work 
is  irregular.  The  wife  who  keeps  boarders  often  never  gets  enough 
ahead  to  pay  for  the  groceries  until  she  is  paid  by  the  boarders  on 
pay  day,  so  she  must  have  credit. 


36 

In  general  it  is  considered  safe  for  the  co-operative  store  to  loan 
a  member  only  as  much  as  he  owns  capital  stock  and  because  of  his 
habit  of  relying  on  credit  the  member  often  finds  that  he  cannot 
trade  at  the  co-operative  because  he  cannot  get  credit. 

While  emergencies  make  credit  sometimes  necessary,  the  habit 
of  relying  on  credit  has  been  encouraged  in  the  past  by  the  order 
system  of  the  company  stores.  The  mine  employees  are  paid  every 
two  weeks,  but  two  weeks'  pay  is  usually  held  back  by  the  company. 
The  company  permits  the  men  to  draw  orders  which  the  company 
store  accepts  for  any  amount  which  they  have  earned.  This  "credit" 
at  the  store  is  deducted  from  the  men's  pay,  so  that  frequently  when 
pay  day  comes  their  wages  have  already  been  spent.  Sometimes 
where  this  system  is  not  arranged  for,  the  men  in  an  emergency 
will  discount  their  orders  for  cash  from  a  foreman  or  fellow-worker. 

Before  prohibition  much  traffic  in  these  orders  was  reported, 
although  the  union  tried  to  discourage  it;  the  men  drew  their  orders 
and  sold  them  at  a  discount  sometimes  of  25  per  cent.  In  order  to 
get  money  a  man  would  sometimes  purchase  with  an  order  some- 
thing such  as  a  side  of  bacon  for  which  they  paid  as  much  as  $7.35 
and  then  resell  it  for  fo.OO  in  cash.  When  pay  day  comes  and  the 
money  has  already  been  drawn,  the  same  process  must  be  continued. 

In  the  camps  where  there  are  also  other  stores,  company  stores 
on  the  whole  are  usually  the  largest  and  the  best  in  appearance. 
Some  of  the  families  complained  that  they  were  more  expensive  than 
the  other  stores,  but  so  far  as  the  agents  of  the  Commission  could 
discover  the  prices  charged  by  the  company  and  by  private  stores 
on  the  whole  appeared  to  vary  no  more  than  retail  prices  frequently 
do  in  different  stores.  Whatever  the  prices  charged  there  is  usually 
much  less  dissatisfaction  when  the  company  towrn  begins  to  sell  its 
houses  and  permits  other  stores  to  come  in.  When  the  men  must 
pay  practically  all  they  earn  for  food  at  the  company  store  and  rent 
a  company  house  there  is  sure  to  be  discontent.  The  co-operative, 
in  addition  to  fostering  much  better  habits  of  purchasing  than  did 
the  company  store  and  .reducing  somewhat  the  cost  of  living,  is  of 
real  educational  value  to  the  active  members. 

TRADE  UNIONISM  AMONG  THE  MINERS 

Some  indication  has  already  been  given  of  the  part  that  the 
union — more  correctly  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America — plays 
in  the  life  of  the  miner.  Through  it  they  have  learned  to  work 


37 

together,  not  only  to  secure  better  wages,  hours  and  protection 
against  accidents,  but  also  to  maintain  a  hospital  for  their  sick,  to 
provide  legal  advice,  to  mitigate  in  some  degree  the  hardships  of 
the  widows  and  orphans  and  to  meet  the  problems  of  a  rising  cost 
of  living  bj-  co-operative  buying. 

At  the  present  time  practically  all  the  fields  in  Illinois  are 
organized  and  as  the  ''check  off"  system — deduction  of  dues  from 
wages — is  used,  every  man  is  a  member  of  the  union.  This  has  not, 
of  course,  always  been  the  case.  In  some  of  the  towns  the  immi- 
grants were  first  brought  in  to  break  a  strike  or  when  one  was 
anticipated.  This  resulted  in  hard  feeling  and  bitterness  among 
the  various  groups.  Stories  are  told  of  how  the  Italians  were  first 
brought  to  Spring  Valley  by  a  saloon-keeper  more  than  thirty  years 
ago  and  of  the  opposition  to  their  being  employed  in  the  mines  at 
that  time.  The  English  speaking  miners  during  the  course  of  an 
eight-month  strike  practically  abandoned  that  field  to  the  Italians 
in  1899.  There  are  many  who  tell  how  only  a  few  years  ago  a  "scab*' 
mine  was  opened  in  Franklin  County  and  the  foreigners'  barracks 
were  patrolled  by  sentries  and  a  searchlight  on  top  of  the  tipple 
swept  the  country  round  for  miles  at  night. 

These  incidents  do  not  describe  the  larger  movement  of  popula- 
tion which  has  come  with  the  development  of  the  mines  of  Illinois 
and  indeed  of  the  Middle  West.  At  first  the  Americans,  Germans, 
Scandinavians,  and  the  English,  Irish,  Scotch  and  Welsh  came  from 
the  Pennsylvania  mines.  In  the  same  way  the  eastern  and  southern 
Europeans  came  later  as  one  field  after  another  was  opened.  They 
were  in  many  places  the  pioneers  and  while  not  so  quickly  identified 
with  the  Americans  as  the  northern  and  western  Europeans,  they 
have  had  their  part  in  the  development  of  the  trade-union  organiza- 
tion. 

The  union  has  no  program  which  it  labels  Americanization.  It 
is,  however,  in  many  places  almost  the  only  unifying  force.  None 
of  the  local  unions  in  the  counties  visited  are  organized  along 
racial  lines  and  practically  the  only  places  where  all  nationalities 
meet  is  in  the  mine  and  at  the  union  meeting.  The  union  theory 
seems  to  be  that  some  way,  somehow  all  the  miners  can  learn 
English  if  they  want  to.  It  has  already  been  shown  that  most  of 
them  learn  to  speak  it  after  a  fashion,  but  the  vocabulary  of  many 
of  those  who  do  is  so  limited  that  they  cannot  take  part  in  the 


38 

meetings  and  they  lose  much  of  what  is  said  when  a  new  subject  is 
under  discussion. 

The  union  has  urged  naturalization.  The  secretary-treasurer 
of  District  12  said  at  the  District  Convention  held  in  Peoria  in 
1920,  "if  the  U.  M.  W.  A.  is  going  to  remain  an  American  Institu- 
tion and  contend  for  American  standards  and  ideals,  then  every 
member  in  it  ought  to  become  an  American  citizen.  Our  Govern- 
ment is  and  always  will  be  what  the  people  make  it.  If  our  laws 
are  not  just,  then  they  should  be  changed.  There  are  no  better 
weapons  with  which  to  do  this  than  free  schools  and  the  ballot. 
The  laws  of  the  land  give  us  both.  If  a  man  refuses  or  neglects  to 
become  a  citizen  and  a  voter  then  he  has  no  right  to  complain  about 
the  laws  which  govern  him."  These  sentiments  all  of  us  would 
applaud,  but  the  difficulty  in  most  of  these  mining  towns  is  that 
there  are  no  free  schools  where  the  adult  may  learn  English.  More- 
over, in  most  of  the  cities  and  towns  of  the  state  the  returns  from 
local  taxation  are  so  small,  that  the  schools  are  woefully  inadequate 
for  the  children,  and  if  they  had  plenty  of  school  funds,  the  law  does 
not  authorize  its  expenditure  for  adult  education.  While  all  this 
can  be  changed  by  legislation,  it  is  at  present  an  example  of  the 
"vicious  circle." 

EACIAL  FEELING 

The  regard  with  which  the  foreign-born  miners  are  held  by  the 
Americans  among  whom  they  live  and  work  differs  in  different  com- 
munities. In  general,  the  difference  is  determined  by  whether  those 
of  a  particular  nationality  are  newcomers  or  old  settlers.  If  they 
are  old  settlers,  they  usually  mingle  freely  with  the  Americans,  and 
judgments  with  reference  to  them  are  individual — a  man  is  liked 
or  disliked  because  of  individual  traits  and  not  because  he  is  or  is 
not  an  Italian,  for  example.  But  for  many  years  after  their 
arrival,  the  language  barrier  separates  the  immigrant  groups  from 
each  other  and  from  the  American.  In  many  of  these  mining  towns 
the  separation  is  intensified  by  an  isolation  which  results  from  poor 
roads.  Isolation  usually  causes  suspicion  and  distrust,  and 
in  camps  in  which  the  frontier  life  of  an  earlier  period  is  duplicated, 
may  under  strong  feeling  result  in  violence  and  serious  injustice. 

In  many  places  it  has  already  been  said  the  mine  and  the 
miners'  union  are  the  only  meeting-places  of  the  adults,  as  the 
school  is  the  meeting-place  of  the  children.  Although  a  very 


39 

large  per  cent  of  the  immigrants  are  Catholic,  they  are  separated  in 
their  churches.  To  a  church  with  an  American  or  Irish  priest  few 
of  the  non-English  speaking  will  go ;  a  church  having  a  priest  able 
to  speak  the  language  of  one  immigrant  grpup  the  others  do  not 
usually  attend.  Thus  a  church  in  Herrin  is  almost  exclusively 
Italian;  the  Poles  do  not  go  to  the  Lithuanian  church  of  Benton; 
the  Slovenians  and  Lithuanians  have  their  own  separate  churches 
in  Springfield;  the  Lithuanians,  Italians,  and  Poles,  all  Roman 
Catholic,  have  their  separate  churches  at  Spring  Valley;  the  priest 
of  the  Russian  Church  in  Buckner,  ministers  almost  exclusively  to 
Russian  Carpathians  of  that  neighborhood. 

This  mutual  exclusiveness  results  from  superficial  rather  than 
important  differences.  It  often,  however,  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  differences  are  an  evidence  of  superiority,  so  that  one  group 
feels  itself  greatly  superior  to  another.  In  some  of  the  Illinois 
camps  this  situation  is  complicatd  by  the  fact  that  the  American 
miners  are  a  rough  set,  inferior  in  most  ways  to  the  foreign  born 
whom  they  contemptuously  refer  to  as  "Round  Heads,"  "Hunkies," 
and  "Dagoes."  An  unwillingness  to  trust  the  courts  when  one  of 
them  is  an  offender  leads  occasionally  to  race  friction  and  riots. 

The  West  Frankfort  riot  that  occurred  during  the  past  sum- 
mer, as  the  story  first  appeared  in  the  newspapers  of  the  state, 
seemed  to  indicate  the  same  kind  of  racial  antagonism  which 
results  in  struggles  over  trivial  affairs  between  the  colored  and 
white  races.  While  greatly  magnified  in  the  first  accounts,  there 
have  been  difficulties  which  prepared  the  public  to  believe  the 
worst.1 

The  great  differences  which  education,  industrial  opportunity, 
and  climate  have  created  between  the  North  and  the  South  Italians 
often  results  in  great  contempt  for  the  South  Italians.  In  many 
towns  in  Illinois  the  North  Italians,  who  were  the  first  to  come  and 
have  more  American  contacts,  are  largely  responsible  for  the 
general  use  of  the  term  "Black  Italians"  to  describe  the  South 


'In  Johnston  the  story  Is  told  of  the  discharge  of  a  South  Italian  miner,  with 
some  ill  feeling  on  the  part  of  both  the  manager  and  the  man.  Shortly  after  a  shot 
was  fired  into  the  manager's  house  at  night  which  killed  his  father-n-law  and  wounded 
his  wife.  The  next  day  the  discharged  employee,  who  was  believed  to  be  responsible 
for  the  killing,  was  hung  by  a  mob  to  the  scale  house  at  the  railroad  station  in  full 
view  of  a  waiting  passenger  train.  This  occurred  in  1915,  but  the  people  still  Justify 
it  as  necessary ;  and  a  mob  was  prepared  to  take  the  law  into  its  hands  to  punish  a 
murder  which  grew  out  of  a  quarrel  over  a  dog  fight  last  winter. 

Near  Willisville  in  1914  an  Italian,  while  being  removed  from  one  town  to 
another  was  lynched  and  shot  twenty  times,  although  he  was  already  under  arrest  and 
handcuffed  at  the  time. 


40 

Italians.  In  some  districts  of  South  Italy  the  people  have  been  in 
the  habit — like  Americans  in  the  mountain  districts  of  the  South— 
of  settling  their  difficulties  and  grievances  without  reference  to  the 
courts  and  the  law.  There  are  some  representatives  of  both  such 
Americans  and  such  Italians  in  camps  where  the  habits  of  the 
frontier  survive. 

In  some  of  the  towns,  although-  there  is  a  large  South  Italian 
colony,  there  have  been  no  outbreaks,  and  no  difficulties  in  law 
enforcement  were  reported  by  the  authorities.  However,  in  a  com- 
munity in  which  Americans  regard  a  lynching  as  a  means  of 
teaching  the  foreigners  a  wholesome  respect  for  law,  little  can  be 
expected  from  the  Sicilian.  In  such  towns  mob  violence  has 
occurred  from  time  to  time  in  the  past.  ' 

SOCIAL  LIFE 

In  the  old  days  some  of  the  mining  camps  were  said  to  be 
nortorious  for  drinking,  gambling,  and  general  disorder.  In  spite 
of  bootlegging,  conditions  are  reported  to  be  much  improved  since 
prohibition  went  into  effect;  but  nothing  has  as  yet  been  provided 
in  the  way  of  recreation  or  diversion  for  the  men,  women,  or 
children  in  many  of  these  camps. 

The  foreign  benevolent  associations  furnish  some  social  life. 
Although  organized  primarily  for  burial  insurance,  during  a  year 
they  often  have  a  social  meeting,  a  lecture,  a  play,  or  a  dance. 
Among  the  Slavs  and  Lithuanians  these  societies  are  usually 
branches  of  national  organizations,  and  through  them  the  members 
are  kept  in  touch  with  settlements  in  other  cities  and  states  and 
with  what  is  happening  at  home.  Some  of  these  own  their  own 
buildings.  In  West  Frankfort,  for  example,  three  Lithuanian 
societies  have  collected  $1,300  and  intend  to  buy  or  to  build  their 
own  club  house. 

In  some  of  the  towns  the  immigrants  have  joined  American 
fraternal  organizations;  but,  because  of  language  difficulties,  they 
usually  take  very  little  part  in  the  social  activities  of  these  organi- 
zations. In  the  smaller  towns  and  camps,  according  to  the  women, 
life  is  dull  and  monotonous  almost  beyond  endurance. 

MOVEMENT  OF  THE  WORKERS  OUT  OF  THE  COAL  FIELDS 

There  is  a  theory  that  much  of  our  immigration  during  the  ten 
years  before  the  war  was  seasonal  in  character;  that  the  Italians 


41 

particularly  were  frequently  birds  of  passage,  who  came  not  to 
settle  here  but  to  work  for  a  short  time  and  then  to  return  with 
such  savings  as  they  could  accumulate  by  practicing  the  greatest 
personal  self-denial.  This  practice  has  been  denounced  as  undesir- 
able from  an  American  standpoint.  It  has  also  been  explained  as 
inevitable  and  desirable  if  exploitation  is  prevented,  on  the  theory 
that  the  international  labor  market  should  be  drawn  upon  not  only 
by  the  United  States  but  by  all  nations  for  seasonal  and  for 
temporary  employment. 

In  the  Illinois  coal  fields  there  has  been  a  much  smaller  move- 
ment of  this  sort  than  might  be  expected.  The  foreign-born  miners, 
although  there  is  a  considerable  movement  from  one  town  to 
another,  seem  to  have  adopted  the  United  States  as  their  home. 

Of  the  556  men  from  whom  schedules  were  secured,  246  had 
come  directly  to  Illinois  and  have  since  lived  continuously  in  the 
state — 128  of  them  in  the  same  city  or  town.  The  next  largest 
group,  140,  had  come  via  Pennsylvania ;  47  via  Missouri ;  and  the 
others  in  smaller  numbers  from  the  metal  mines  of  Michigan,  from 
the  coal  fields  of  Alabama  and  Ohio,  and  from  25  other  states. 

According  to  the  reports  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Immigration  during  the  decade  from  11)10  to  1019  there  were  only 
o,.'J01  alien  miners  from  Illinois  in  the  outgoing  stream.  During 
each  of  the  first  four  years  of  the  decade  the  number  leaving  was 
about  500 ;  in  1914  it  increased  to  739,  probably  because  of  return- 
ing reservists.  In  1919  there  were  158  who  went  back.  In  the 
course  of  the  investigation  it  was  found  that  a  considerable  number 
especially  of  the  Italians  had  been  to  the  old  home  once  and  some 
twice  for  a  visit,  but  they  regarded  the  United  States  and  Illinois 
as  their  real  home.  In  Williamson  and  Franklin  counties  16  per 
cent  of  the  men  interviewed  had  been  back.  Thirty-two  per  cent  of 
the  South  Italians  and  20  per  cent  of  the  North  Italians,  but  only 
5  per  cent  of  the  Poles  and  Lithuanians  had  returned  for  a  visit. 

From  the  northern  coal  fields  there  has  been  a  steady  departure 
as  one  after  another  the  richer  mines  of  the  central  and  southern 
part  of  the  state  and  industrial  towns  have  offered  larger  returns 
to  the  worker.  Cherry,  in  Bureau  County,  has  decreased  in  popula- 
tion ever  since  the  fire,  until  now  the  town,  originally  built  to 
house  500  workers  in  the  mines  has  only  :U>2  miners.  Whole  rows 
of  houses  are  boarded  up,  and  the  main  street  is  grass  grown.  In 


42 

other  parts  of  Hnrran  County  nirn  have  been  atlradr.l   to  factory 
work  by  (lie  higher  wages.     Although  many   who  own   their  own 

liMlnr       .in-     .Irl.-i  |  r,|     ||.,|ll     IcMVIlr.'     by     lli.ll      l.irl.     Ot  llCI'S     llRVO    ;ili:lll 

doned  their  property  in  order  to  go.     In  Spring  Valley  -00  children 

are    H'|M.rl.-.|    t<)   have    loft      the     Schools     ItlHt     \\  inln      hecaUHC     their 

parents  were  moving  to  industrial  centers  —  Detroit,  Kockford,  and 
apparently  attracting  most  of  them. 


In  Sangamon  County,  although  there  waH  a  shortage  of  labor 
in  th<'  mi  IICH  last  Nnmmcr,  men  were  leaving  for  factory  jolw.  On 
the  whole,  however,  there  wan  mud  to  be  comparatively  little  shift- 
ing in  ili.ii  Mction. 

Diminishing  returns  from  their  labor  in  one  Held  or  better 
wagcH  in  the  iiHliiMlrial  IOWIIH  IH  the  most  freipient  reanon  why  the 
minei-H  leave  one  town  or  camp  for  another  or  for  the  city.  The 
regularity  of  factory  work  in  recent  years  made  the  yearly  factory 
wage  Hcale  higher  than  the  minci-H*.  Irregularity  of  employment  in 
the  mines  IUIH  been  one  of  the  greatest  drawbacks  to  this  work. 

But  in  addition  to  economic  reasons  many  of  the  miners  leave 
because  they  know  their  children  will  have  better  schools  and 
opportunities  of  all  sorts  in  a  city  than  in  a  mining  camp  and  when 
they  are  ready  to  go  to  work  there  will  be  a  wider  choice  of  employ- 
ment open  to  them. 

There  is  a  spying  ''once  a  miner,  always  a  miner,''  and  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  that  there  is  real  attachment  to  the  work  in  spite  of  the 
hazards,  the  fact  that,  it  means  for  most  of  them  underground  work, 
and  usually  fewer  opportunities  for  themselves  and  their  children. 
Some  of  those  who  leave  return  because  they  prefer  the  relative 
independence  which  the  miner  enjoys  in  his  work.  During  the 
winter  of  1910-liO  some  returned  because  of  the  high  city  rents  or 
their  inability  to  HIM  I  any  place  in  which  to  live  in  the  industrial 
centers. 

CONCLUSION 

It  would  be  a  mistake  if  the  impression  of  helplessness  has 
been  given  JIM  the  characteristic  of  the  immigrant  miners  in  Illinois. 
Quite  the  reverse  is  the  case.  Mining  apparently,  more  than  indns 
trial  employment,  develops  independence  of  thought  and  action  and 
individual  initiative.  In  general  these  are  the  lialtits  of  the  frontier 
which  have  so  influenced  the  development  of  American  life.  While 


43 

we  know  (lie  value  lo  tlu-  individual  of  pioneering,  we  also  know  its 
costliness.  It  is  peculiarly  hard  on  the  women  and  children,  and 
too  frequently  the  children  of  vigorous  pioneering  stock  are 
physically  exhausted  before  they  begin  life.  The  mining  towns  in 
the  same  sections  and  in  diH'erent  sections  of  the  stale  differ  from 
each  other.  In  some  the  problems  are  no  more  serious  than  in  the 
average  industrial  community.  In  a  town  which  has  a  thousand 
people,  no  doctor,  and  only  one  telephone  and  that  not  available  all 
the  time,  when  houses  are  miserable  makeshifts  for  homes,  when 
the  water  supply  is  had  and  inadequate,  when  the  schools  are  OUT 
crowded  and  the  term  short,  when  there  is  no  organi/.ed  recreation, 
life  offers  little  to  the  miners  ami  even  less  to  their  wives  and  their 
children.  So  far  as  the  immediate  outlook  is  concerned,  this  is  not 
a  temporary  but  a  permanent  condition.  That  the  children  do  not 
want  to  enter  the  mines  when  they  grow  up,  that  the  boys  from 
these  communities  who  saw  life  with  the  army  will  want  at  least 
to  try  for  something  better  is  to  be  expected.  At  this  time. 
however,  when  there  is  a  world  shortage  of  coal,  the  Illinois 
mines  must  be  worked,  and  some  way  should  be  found  of 
protecting  health,  and  of  supplying  better  schools,  more  comfortable 
homes,  and  richer  recreational  opportunities  in  the  mining  com- 
munities of  the  state.  The  possible  savings  which  might  be  made  it 
the  coal  were  converted  into  power  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine  and 
by-products  were  adopted  for  commercial  purposes  are  now  being 
discussed  by  engineers.  The  social  advantages  of  such  a  plan  should 
not  be  ignored.  It  would  bring  to  these  districts  diversity  of  em- 
ployment and,  in  a  large  measure,  make  the  isolated  camp  a  thing 
of  the  past. 


